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Social media strategies for highly successful virtual events

Axel Schultze

Founder

Social Media Academy

Xeesm.com/AxelS

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• Social Media Specific Trainings

• Over 3,000 participants from 24 countries

• Social Business Master Class

• Social Media Strategist Certification

• Corporate Social Media Education

• Channel Empowerment Programs

Social Media Academy

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Understand the change

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The model of influence has changed• 1990’s

– Source: Technology magazines

– Influencer: Media

– How: Inquiries through fax

• 2000’s

– Source: Internet websites

– Influencer: References, Vendor presence

– How: Inquiries through online forms

• 2010’s

– Source: Search & Social Media

– Influencer: User generated content

– How: Direct request with SKU and price expectation

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Inquiry flow over time

News paper

+ Bill boards

+ Tradeshows

+ Internet reg. pages

+ TV commercials

????

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The new product discovery model

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The influential forces 2000• Industry Analysts

• TV

• Print media

• Internet

• Email marketing

• The industry boosted with 10,000 watt speakers at my friend who barely has 1 watt to respond

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The influential forces 2010Today he is listening to a different group

• Friends, peers, colleagues

• People with real experience

• People with expertise

• People who others trust

• They still have only 1 watt – but together it’s a 500 Million Watt noise level

• The 10,000 watt are just a faint background noise if anything

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What does that mean to events – any events?

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Event preparation history

• If you still do what most did in the last 10 years, blast out an invite, ask a call center to follow up, send another reminder…

• You end up with … what 50 attendees?

• And then what?

– Follow up calls?

– Follow up email shots?

– Follow up…?

• Many just gave up – “online is not working for us”

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Making a difference

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Online Events using social media• “Online” is the preferred way to gain knowledge and

experience

• Online is the least effort for the audience

• Provides you global reach

• You should get to 250 – 750 attendees each webinar

• You should be able to do annual events with 5,000 –15,000 people

• Social media is not just a new arrow in your quiver it’s an all new bow

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Strategies to leverage Social Media

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Step by step engagement

Event Preparation

• Tune into the 500 Million watt conversationHave everybody who can possibly help be part of it

Event Execution

• Make sure everybody participating can be actively engaged in the event

Post event engagement

• Now the real business actually begins

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Event preparation, a socially concerted effort

• Connections

– Be approachable

– Know your team

– Have your platforms

• Create buzz

– With your “army” Xeesm.com/AxelS

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Professional Social Engagement• Know your audience

• Be sure you know their social networks

• Know what is on top of their mind

• Engage socially

• Build multiple “Flights™”

• Share, help, explain, ask…

• You can reach 60 people an hour, 480 a day, 5,000 a month. With 20 people you can reach 100,000 people in 30 days.

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Event Execution• Online events allow for online participation

– More people can ask questions through Twitter

– More people can answer

– More people will notice using hash tags #on24

– More people share their opinion

• Make it a 500 Million Watt event

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Event content amplification

• Got amplifiers?

Amplify everything

– Encourage the audience to tweet and re-tweet

– Have your team tweet and re-tweet

– Blog right at the event and share it through all media

– Post the presentations as they are going on and make sure people find it

– Put it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, make life streams if possible…

• You have a powerful army who will help

– Encourage all speakers to talk about it

– Encourage all partners to promote it

– Encourage your customer advocates to spread the word

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Leverage monitoring tools Track everything from day one

Catch discussions around your event

Be always on and provide feedback to your team

Win back influence!!!

Logo Here…the super stars socialize!

Post event engagement

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Professional Follow Up Through Socializing

• Let’s go back to our Flights!

• We want to visit all attendees and ask them individually for feedback –pleeez no survey

• We continue the engagement by extending the discussions to a 1:1

• We are now in a customer engagement with 100% of our audience – within one week! Focus

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Resources – Connections

• http://bit.ly/vue2010

• Http://socialmedia-academy.com

• Http://xeesm.com

• http://xeesm.com/AxelS

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Summary

You can’t direct the wind…

…but you can adjust your sail• Keep in mind – it’s still a numbers game

– Reaching 60 contacts an hour

– Getting to 100,000 with a team of 20

• Setup professional social business tools– Enable the team to succeed

– It’s a new world that needs new tools

• Be very focused in your effort– Nobody wins by accident

• Get in touch http://xeesm.com/AxelS

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Join me in the Networking Lounge

+1 (650) 384-0057

http://xeesm.com/AxelS

Presentation for download:

http://bit.ly/vue2010

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About

The Social Media Academy is considered the world wide leading education and research institute for applied social media in business. It is providing education for business professionals from all industries on how to best apply social media to their respective organizations. The main emphasis is to help business managers and consultant to get a comprehensive insights and hands on experience through collaborative workshops in strategy development, planning, execution, tools selection, resources allocation as well as reporting. Attendees get to use leading methodologies, models and frameworks such as the social media strategy framework, the four quadrant assessment methodology or the NCP model and other strategic tools to create successful social media engagements.

The Social Media Academy is based in Palo Alto, California. For more information go to http://www.socialmedia-academy.com