In nearly every B2B industry—from building products to tech to manufacturing—professionals attend trade shows to preview future concepts, promote their brands and connect with each other.
Engaging with attendees and brands on social media allows professionals to maximize connections at trade shows. Twitter is the most common social network utilized at trade shows because of its short, frequent posts that can be connected through hashtags. But trade shows are busy. Between meetings, presentations and social events, it’s hard to keep up a good social media presence without being glued to a phone.
Improve your Twitter game with these helpful tips for tweeting at a trade show, before, during and after.
Follow the show.
Look up the show’s Twitter handle and official hashtag before traveling. Start following their account to stay up on the latest news and copy their handle and hashtag to a notes application on your phone (Notes, Evernote, OneNote, Notepad, etc.). This will allow you to easily copy and paste these into tweets during the show, saving on time—and typos.
Bonus tip: save your business website and any other information you’d want to include in tweets in the notes application as well.
Make a list.
Make a Twitter list to keep track of important people at the show. These can be speakers, potential prospects and competitors. If you’re tracking competitors, you may want to make your list private. Create a list by going to the “Lists” section of your profile and clicking “Create new list” on the right. This allows you to see tweets from only the people on that list.
Tag key contacts.
Tag brands and people you interact with at the show. Whether you have a meaningful conversation at a booth, or attend a keynote presentation, be sure to use search for their profile on Twitter and tag them in your tweet.
Turn on notifications.
Turn on mobile notifications so you know when someone wants to get in touch. Go to your settings menu, choose Notifications and Mobile Notifications to customize engagement notices.
And don’t forget to thank everyone who followed and interacted with you during the show. You’re already following up on all those business cards you collected; don’t forget to do the same on Twitter!
What are your best social media trade show tips? Tell us in the comments!