Tweeting your way to tradeshow buzz

The company I work for is an IBM business partner so we make the annual trek to Lotusphere - the all-things-Lotus, "yellow is the new black" conference and tradeshow hosted in Orlando, Florida. This year, however, we didn’t just come by ourselves. We took everyone else with us using social media.

We created a designated Twitter ID for our presence at the show (@LotusFaceTime) and tweeted conference highlights, FaceTime/IBM news, and our comings and goings at the show, including the people we’ve seen - and those who have seen us – we couldn’t be missed in fluorescent yellow glasses! (We called them a free social visibility tool.) We kicked off our get-noticed mission by wearing the fluorescent eye wear and accompanying blinking t-shirts to the event’s evening welcome reception, complete with capturing photos of folks with our Twitter ID or theirs. Needless to say, we stood out, in a good way.

It’s been great fun engaging with our Twitter followers, converting those online conversations into face-to-face meetings – and gaining lots of new followers who we’ll continue to engage with after the show. Plus, all the buzz helped spread the word about the company and drove traffic to the booth. We even had someone from IBM come by to tell us he showed up to a customer meeting only to see everyone walk in wearing our yellow glasses! And of course we did traditional pre-event email marketing, too – proven here by someone who printed out our email and brought it with him to the show. (I call that a personal marketing win.)

I think most all marketers today are being challenged with how to integrate social media into marketing strategy and campaigns. Maybe these ideas can help you get started with how to do that for your company. Whether or not it includes fluorescent eye wear is completely up to you.