Are you learning from your peers?
The reason we attend industry association conferences is to
learn best practices so we can make our own events better. Are you paying
attention to how your peers are using social media at these events? Your
attendees will not necessarily use social media in the same way your peers do
at our industry association conferences. However, it might be worth noting how
the community has evolved.
Now that I have attended two of the major association
conferences in our industry, I can compare and contrast the communities. The
first thing worth pointing out is that the most influential tweeters can be
found at both events. They typically attend more than one professional
development conference on a national or international level. This might seem
obvious because if they are successful networkers offline, then they are
probably successful networkers online. Is the same true of your constituents?
Our industry is also lucky enough to have a “non-partisan”
hashtag on Twitter. This means that there is a place for us to have
conversations on Twitter that is not tied to one of the industry associations.
This has connected the people who only attend events sponsored by one
association, or are not able to attend any of these professional development
conferences. Are you paying attention to the hashtags that your constituents
are using or are your organization’s hashtag the one they go to?
Over the past four years, there certainly has been a
migration of people on and off Twitter in our industry. The use of
“non-partisan” hashtags as well as industry association hashtags has an ebb and
flow to it. The early adopters got the party started, but like any other trend,
once it was not the newest thing anymore, they started slowing down the participation.
Other folks figured it out in the mean time and if they were able to see a
positive ROI for the time spent there, they continued to participate. Your
constituents may be found at any point in this continuum.
Are you monitoring
their activity so you can make informed decisions about what your event should
be providing?
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