Using social media to maximise education and networking

How ICCA used social media to add value to its 2015 Congress

The 2014 ICCA Congress in Antalya had tremendous social media traffic and provided some valuable results (see: 15 Reasons ICCA had tremendous Twitter traffic at the 2014 Congress). The most valuable results were not only the fact that 59% of the delegates indicated in the post-congress survey that they used social media before, during and/or after the event, but that 70% of those delegates said it helped them increase the value of their ICCA Congress experience.  Additionally, almost 75% said they feel using Twitter helped them to increase their interaction with other members. These are very high and tangible results that are hard to top! Was this a one year result only and did ICCA get lucky or was this a more structural result that we could repeated this year?

4 Meetings PR trends in 2015

The 5 shortlisted campaigns for the ICCA Best PR Award 2015 showed some clear parallels, which sum up the latest trends in meetings industry PR:

• Destinations are using local expertise and local knowledge to position themselves as knowledge hubs
• Even though we are in a B2B market –  all campaigns are aimed at people, and about finding ways to activate people
• Successful PR campaigns use storytelling
• They all successfully implement online channels

All successful PR campaigns of the 5 shortlisted candidates include at least 3 of these 4 aspects. Find short interviews by Ian Whiteling about all 5 campaigns below, including an introduction by James Latham of Best PR Award sponsore International Meetings Rreview and Best PR Award judging panel chair Johanna Fischer:

See also: Why Bogota won the ICCA Best PR Award 2015

How to use social media to add value to your ICCA Congress? – Part 2: What to share?

The previous blog post elaborated on how to make use of the different social media channels to add value to your ICCA Congress experience. You might think, yes, Mathijs, this all sounds very nice, but how to put this to action? What should I post?

Gerrit Heijkoop’s (of ICCA member How Can I Be Social) “5  L’s” provide a very useful rule of thumb to help write valuable and relevant Social Media updates . I hope this will give you some inspiration to join the #ICCAWorld Congress conversation:

How to use social media to add value to your ICCA Congress?

Last year’s ICCA Congress propelled on social media (See related press release  and “15 Reasons ICCA had tremendous Twitter traffic at the 2014 Congress”). While on average 10-20% of delegates at a conference or tradeshow are active on Twitter, almost 60% of ICCA Congress delegates were active on Twitter before, during or after the ICCA Congress.

How to make the most of this opportunity and use social media to increase your ICCA Congress experience?

ICCA members’ press releases part 2 – topics and creativity

We viewed and categorized a total of 48 press releases published on the ICCA website in July to share some observations.

The majority of texts introduce changes in infrastructure, new developments, strategies and concepts – 19 % of the 48 July releases are in context with sustainability matters in one way or the other.
Announcements of congresses won and awards/competitions are the other topics used for the releases. Some articles fit into more than 1 category; hence the majority of press releases are on the factual rather than on the inspiring – story-telling – side.

Social media for events: #ICCAAES 2015 presentation

Really enjoyed presenting the case study of the social media activities around our 2014 ICCA Congress as a humble keynote speaker at the ICCA Association Expert Seminar (#ICCAAES) last weekend.

Thank you beautiful #ICCAAES participants! Glad to talk social media for events with you. #ICCAWorld pic.twitter.com/2wAGdBRUVZ

— Mathijs Vleeming (@MathijsV) May 17, 2015

Here’s the presentation on Slideshare:

15 Reasons ICCA had tremendous Twitter traffic at the 2014 Congress

 

Before bragging about these numbers let me just make this clear: Just having great Twitter statistics is not the goal of our social media efforts. The aim of using Twitter for most participants is to bookmark and share great content (of education sessions), to inspire thinking by colleagues in the meetings industry, and to meet new people. It is not about social media, it is about connectivity.

The objectives of our social media activities for the ICCA Congress are:

• Increasing the value of the Congress for members
• Increasing interaction and connectivity between members, before, during and after the event
• Showing members that are not going what they are missing
• Online ICCA profiling to our other target groups: potential members, associations, press

Numbers

You cannot reach these goals without having great Twitter statistics, so here comes the bragging: These are the stats of our current live report which represents the total number of Tweets with hashtag #ICCAWorld from 23 September until Friday 28 November:

Social Media & Events Report 2014: The meetings industry increases its social media activities

How is the meetings industry using social networks for event marketing? ICCA once again was a media partner for XING EVENTS’ (before: amiando) annual Social Media & Events Survey. Beginning in April until the end of June 2014 XING EVENTS surveyed about 2,000 event organisers in order to learn how organisers utilize social media as a marketing instrument, what the latest trends and where the biggest challenges lie:

New social media toolkit released by Tourism Research Australia

Australia’s most successful and growing regional events are using social media platforms to create strong event attendance and reputation. By connecting their events to communities of interest, they create networks of advocates and take the pressure off marketing budgets.

amiando’s Social Media & Events Report 2013

Check out amiando’s new Social Media & Events Report 2013, which was published today and for which ICCA is a media partner again:

http://blog.amiando.com/2013-08-14/social-media-events-report-2013-how-is-the-event-industry-using-social-networks/

Over the last few years, the report has become a must read among event organisers and is considered as an important source of information on the subject of social media in the event industry.