To make things more complicated each country has its own customs. I always seem to forget what to do. Where do I start? Left cheek or right? Do we hug too? Two kisses or three? As a result, greetings can be awkward and uncomfortable for me – even though they are intended to be friendly and cordial.

I think the same awkwardness occurs in social media.

Each person has different preferences and comfort levels with social media. Some people are happy to write blog posts, while others prefer to rate them. Some people will write comments longer than your original post, but are terrified to actually write a blog post themselves. Some are happy to be lurkers – consuming your content and quietly going about their business.

How Does This Apply to Your Attendees?

If you want to engage your event community in meaningful dialogue, you need to engage them on their terms. To be effective, I think that you need to keep these two questions in mind:

1. How do my attendees prefer to engage with me through social media?
2. What tools can I deploy to engage attendees where they are most comfortable?

How Do You Engage Attendees on Their Own Terms?

The Groundswell is a great resource that can help you understand how your attendees will use Social Media. For those that have never heard of the Groundswell – it is an idea, book and research from Forrester Research. Here is an excellent video that summarizes the approach. (If you have 2 minutes – this video is worth watching.)

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If you want more information on the ground swell read this excellent summary or visit the Groundswell website. Equally important, try the Groundswell’s profile tool. It gives you a snapshot of your audience’s social media preferences. For an Association example – check out Frank Fortin’s Blog (Frank is the Communications Director of the Massachusetts Medical Society). You can read his findings here.

Bottom Line

Before you launch your Facebook fan page, start a Linkedin group or create a Twitter account – understand how your audience will be most comfortable engaging with you. Then, select the right social media tools to engage them accordingly.

Your event attendees need to feel comfortable engaging with you, unlike me, who is always trying to remember was it two kisses or three? Right cheek or left?

The post Does Social Media Feel Like an Awkward Embrace? appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

This scenario is common for many first-time, shy and timid attendees. It can be a networking hell.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You, the event organizer, can throw attendees a life preserver and save them. Here are some things that you can do to help.

Understand Attendees Networking Objectives

The post 20 Reasons Delegates Attend Conferences uncovered several “specific” attendee networking objectives. In many cases, I think these objectives are unstated by most people – but they are there. By recognizing these objectives and creating activities to support them – you can help your attendees do a better job of networking.

Here are some examples of different networking objectives:

• Meet Like Minded People
• Discuss Topics of Interest
• Connect with Old Friends
• Meet New People
• Discuss Best Practices
• Find New Business Partners

Notice the verbs – meet, discuss, connect and find.  Are you helping attendees do these things at your events – or is it largely their responsibility?

Five Questions Attendees Need Help Answering

When I worked at Spotme, we helped thousands and thousands of attendees network better than ever before. The secret to this success was in Spotme’s ability to help attendees answer the following questions:

1. Who else is here?

2. What do they look like?

3. What do I have in common with other participants?

4. How do I find or connect with them?

5. How can we stay connected after this event?

Imagine how much easier it would be for you to network at events if you had tools that answered those questions? Imagine how much your attendees would love you if you provided similar tools?

The good news is that there are several ways to do this. You could print a photo guide, provide an electronic delegate list, use an event specific social networking site (like Crowdvine, Pathable, Social Collective, Eventvue or Zerista), create a networking wall, use an onsite mobile networking tool, etc.

Bottom Line

There are several ways that you can help first-time, shy or timid attendees have an awesome networking experience. First – consider their objectives. Second – put together activities that correspond to those objectives. Finally, provide tools that help attendees answer important questions about the others at the event.

You have the ability to throw your attendees a life preserver and save them from networking hell. Will you do it?

photo credit: scoobay

The post How to Save Attendees from Networking Hell appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.

The press release identified six elements of the conference experience that meeting professionals felt were unable to be replaced by technology:

1. Socializing and networking spontaneously
2. Helping attendees best put names with faces
3. Allowing more free and open dialogue between attendees and vendors/presenters
4. Training effectively via live and personal interaction
5. Paying greater attention to others when face-to-face
6. Engaging in real-time conversation that is not interrupted by technical glitches.

My Thoughts

While I agree that technology will not replace the face to face events, I would argue that interactive and social technologies are improving and enhancing face2face meetings. Here are two examples:

Social Networking Solutions: Social networking solutions help participants answer the questions: Who else is at the event? Who are the like-minded people that I should meet? and what do they look like? Based on my experience, these tools helped me put a name with a face and maximize my limited networking time.

Speaker Q&A Texting Solutions: In a typical 10 minute Q&A session, the speaker can answer 3-4 questions via the microphone. When I have used Q&A texting solutions as a speaker, I have been able to answer 8-10 questions in the same 10 minute time block.

What do you think?

Do you think social and interactive technologies add value to face2face events? Do you think social and interactive technologies add value to the 6 elements listed above? I am interested to get your point of view.

The post Do Social Technologies Add Value to Face2Face Meetings? appeared first on Interactive Meeting Technology.