Great uses of Twitter at conferences

I had the pleasure of attending the Monitoring Social Media conference in Boston yesterday.  While I was there to discuss Social CRM, I took the opportunity to listen to a number of other speakers.

All of the speakers were great.  However, Aafia Chaudhry, CEO, JuvoLab & Founding Partner, Noesis, did a really nice job presenting the findings of research she performed at a recent conference.   She analyzed how companies at a recent medical conference were utilizing Twitter as part of their conference communication efforts.  Her findings, summarized on this slide, fall into two main categories:

Driving traffic to your booth and your website.

Aafia noted that one company had a large display setup at their booth where a twitter stream of conference-related tweets displayed.  People gathered at the booth to catch up on key highlights and to see their names scrolling by, it was a success.  One company, however, became so self-promotional in their attempts to drive traffic that the twitter audience became frustrated and negative towards their tweets, having the opposite effect.  Add value and respect your audience, good things will follow.

Educating the community

Adding value, providing education…. These are the  keys to success on twitter and beyond.  Many companies provided updates on treatments, disease-specific facts, and medical trials.  These updates, this information, was not about the company but was valuable information that others at the conference, and those not at the conference, could benefit from.  Become a trusted source of information and people will come to you.

Twitter, Facebook, Email, and other communication methods can supplement your in-person efforts at a conference.  Don’t miss out.

John