Social Media Roundup: Stretch Your Event’s Definition

It sounds cliché, but sometimes you just have to break out of the box.

With industries evolving and new directions being taken, getting people to spend money on your event requires a different kind of value proposition than it once did. How do you keep people interested? Thoughts on that and more below:

What’s Holding You Back?

These Barriers Keep You From Conference Innovation by @JeffHurt  (opens in a new tab) http://t.co/sy0ZGDNT1k  (opens in a new tab) #pcma  (opens in a new tab) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab)

— Dave Lutz (@VelChain) August 27, 2013  (opens in a new tab)

Back in the day, conferences could rely on being the biggest game in town to win people over. That’s not the case anymore, says Velvet Chainsaw’s Jeff Hurt  (opens in a new tab). Hurt says that today, conferences must focus on building a stronger consumer experience—and outdated strategies are barriers to that happening. “Too often, conference owners don’t focus on generating value for their customers,” Hurt explains. “Instead they are looking to salvage internal processes and the limits of their own organization’s capacity. Their focus is playing with the tools they have instead of looking outside of their organization for new tools.” How are you breaking down old processes at your organization? (ht @VelChain  (opens in a new tab))

Rethinking the Terminology

https://twitter.com/jcufaude/status/371989994128162816

Does “tradeshow” really describe it? Some food for thought from a new ad in Wired, in which the Consumer Electronics Association tries a different tack in describing its high-profile Consumer Electronics Show. This actually raises a good question that ties in with the issue above: If you’re trying to break down barriers to the best attendee experience, does it start with the terminology? How can you market your expos and events in innovative ways? The CES has chosen to downplay the word “tradeshow,” but does that work for everyone else? (ht @jcufaude  (opens in a new tab))

How are you pushing past assumptions about your event? Let us know in the comments.

(iStockphoto/Thinkstock)