The event experts blog
A few months back, we partnered with Guidebook to give you the easiest way to create a mobile app for your event. Here’s an update on their latest developments from their blog.
We have been hard at working making Guidebook better. I’d like to share three of the new features just released in version 1.5!
Share Photos
Everyone knows it: sharing is in. The new Photos module allows your users to upload and share photos from your event or location. We’re really excited for this feature because we think there are a lot of creative ways to take advantage of a shared photo album. Optionally, you can also disable user uploads to display an album of curated photos. Here are some ideas we had, but feel free to share your ideas with us!
Events, Conventions, Tradeshows - Let users share photos of all of the cool things they see in and around the event, or use it as part of a contest or scavenger hunt.
Universities - Share photos of student activities or any other interesting things seen around campus.
Weddings - Who needs a photographer when you could let all of your guests take and share their photos!
The photos module is available for new Plus and Premium guides. If you’ve already started your guide and want to add it, just let us know!
Calendars
Our schedule feature was initially designed to suit events that lasted for a relatively short time (less than a week). Since then, we’ve been getting more and more requests for ongoing guides - guides for events and organizations that operated year-round. These organizations want an interactive calendar, where users could easily search for events several weeks in the future, so here it is!
Sell Tickets
If you’ve ever thought it would be cool to sell tickets right from your guide, you’re in luck! Our new ticketing module lets you sell tickets via our partner Eventbrite directly from your guide. If you haven’t already checked out Eventbrite for ticket sales, they’re great. We like them because they offer a very straightforward, easy-to-use, reasonably priced ticketing solution for events of all sizes.
This is how the Mozilla Foundation plans their events. Do you have a similar event strategy for your organization?
by Marvin McTaw
What’s In This Article
There has been a lot of criticism lately about printed materials at events. While I agree we should cut back for the environment, there’s actually very logical reasons why print still exists that outsiders often fail to consider.
The vast majority of the conferences, festivals and meetings we work with have printed programs. This didn’t make sense to me for a long time because our software helps organizers make all the event’s details available online, in mobile apps and in print-ready formats. A little investigation showed me exactly why printed materials still exist. There are economical and practical reasons that justify printed materials for conferences, festivals and meetings.
Signup on the page to be notified when this badboy launches. This year is going to be the best ever! http://austin2012.sched.org/
(Source: sxsw.sched.org)
14 notes (via schedsxsw & gtmcknight)
There’s been a big discussion going on about measuring the value of conferences and meetings. In fact, last year the Convention Industry Council along with MPI and a host of other industry associations commissioned a rather comprehensive study of the industry. The results were released to much fanfare under the banner, Meetings Mean Business. I’ve included the executive summary above for your convenience or you can purchase the the report here.
The study’s results were pretty incredible: what was once thought to be a rag-tag multi-billion dollar industry turned out to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. This report had a material impact on the conversation going on at the time by showing the benefit of events to the US Economy during a period of incredible scrutiny (Remember the AIG Incentive Meetings & Goldman Sachs controversies after the bailouts anyone?)
While the release of this report helped to dampen the industry’s critics, it doesn’t seem most meeting planners got the memo: you need to show your worth. There was actually a great article over at the Plus Point blog discussing this very topic: measuring the value of your events.
The post really taps into a core problem that we see in the industry: lack of measurement. It is my belief, and it is one shared by many, that the fear of measuring comes from the fear that our events do not deliver the value we think they did.
What’s In This Post?
You can now easily embed your sched.org website into your event’s website, just like a YouTube video. The embed will allow you to retain your conference or festival’s branding and give you added flexibility to either replace pages on your website or enhance your existing site. This is a great solution for those not familiar with HTML/CSS and let’s your Sched.org site easily adopt your event’s branding.
The embed code is extremely flexible and available with variety of flavors including with or without the Sched.org sidebar, with or without a fixed width and is incredibly easy to implement. Simply copy a small snippet of code to a page on your website and voila! You now have your Sched.org tools embedded on your website!
You can use the Sched.org embeds to replace portions of your website or simply to enhance your existing pages. For example, you could replace your existing static speaker directory with Sched.org’s dynamic speaker directory or embed a speaker’s presenting schedule directly on your event website’s page dedicated to that speaker.
The embeds also allow you to control the default view you choose to have your attendees interact with. For example, instead of the sched.org default view, you could embed the Grid View as the default view for your schedule.
The embed code is accesible in the administrative portion of your Sched.org site. You can find the code directly in the Dashboard or in Settings » Embed
Most conference, festival and meeting planners are completely dedicated to putting on a great event. During a Twitter Chat discussing ways to help market your events, something one of the participants said made me think of a quote I once heard in regards to event planning:
Your goal is not pleasing your attendees. If you really wanted to please them, you’d serve them steak dinners!
While it might be a bit audacious, if you take a second and think about it, it’s actually completely true. Organizers are not looking to put on the best possible event for their attendees. You are looking to deliver the highest value possible with the resources you have available.
By changing your paradigm to understand this, you must let go of the feelings of regret for doing things you “should” be doing. Furthermore, you quickly realize that the only truly limited resource is time, not money. You can always go out and get more money. Find more sponsors, get more exhibitors, get your budget increased, increase registrations/rates, cut costs or find other ways to generate revenue.
Is your goal as an organizer really to please your attendees? Is it some other constituency: sponsors, speakers, exhibitors, etc.? Do you agree or disagree that the only truly limited resource is time? In regards to the event budget, do you agree or disagree that there are ways to do more with less?
If you’re thinking of using Google+ for your conference, festival or meeting, then you would greatly benefit from reading this report. This study looks at the top 100 brands and evaluates their adoption, investment and engagement on Google+.
In case you don’t feel like reading the entire report, I’ve pasted the conclusion from the report below:
It’s definitely too early to make any sweeping statements about the future of Google+…overall we can see that there is interest in the network from both brands and users. Brands and consumers are trying to determine how this new channel fits into their strategy and their life.
Even though we have a Google+ page, it’s pretty much our same sentiment. It’s too soon to tell but if you’re into it, join us on there, on Facebook, on Twitter…join us everywhere!
What do you think of Google+ so far?
You’ve asked for it and now we’ve got it: monthly plans with unlimited events (conferences, festivals, meetings, etc). The monthly plans are ideal for those looking to offer five star solutions with a half-star budget. The unlimited plans are great for anyone planning more than one event and for organizations interested in offering our tools for attendees at smaller scale events like internal meetings.
Here at Sched.org, we are big fans of free: we love free swag at conferences and festivals, free music (We <3 Grooveshark & The Hype Machine)…heck we even have a Free Forever plan of our content management system and dynamic tools for attendees…and we’re guessing, you probably like free too.
We will be giving away our Professional Package to a lucky conference or festival organizer and it could be you! Here’s how you can win:
Step 1: Enter Your Upcoming Event
Click Here To Enter
Step 2: 10,10, Then You’re In!
You’ll need to add some of your conference, festival or meeting’s information. The minimum requirements are
And that’s it! Pretty simple, right?
The deadline to enter is Friday, January 20th and the winner will be announced on Monday, February 6th. This is great opportunity for organizers looking to eliminate some of their event management headaches and provide their attendees with tools like personal agenda builders and mobile apps. For more information on our products and services, view the tour here:
Conntact us via one of the methods listed here if you have any questions. This opportunity ends soon so go ahead, enter your event and we wish you all good luck!
by Marvin McTaw
This post is part of our Content Marketing for Event Planners Series.
The content marketing series has been a big hit so far, thanks to you! In the first post, we discussed how you can use speaker’s presentations and handouts to help market your event and generate revenue. In the next article in the content management series, we will be discussing several ideas designed to help improve your conference or festival with photos and images. Topics to be discussed include using pictures to
We have lots of ideas we’ll be discussing but before we begin, we wanted to hear from you!
Is there anything in particular you want us to be sure to cover? Are there any services (e.g. Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest) that you think we should definitely discuss? Are there any ideas you’ve had that you want included in the post?
![I love infographics! Check this one out from The Next Web discussing top trends in 2011 on Twitter. I must admit, I find it a little disturbing that the top trend on Twitter, is Twitter itself.
thenextweb:
(via Hootsuite: Top Trending Brands on Twitter [Infographic])](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxla80gaHh1qejjfeo1_500.jpg)
I love infographics! Check this one out from The Next Web discussing top trends in 2011 on Twitter. I must admit, I find it a little disturbing that the top trend on Twitter, is Twitter itself.
(via Hootsuite: Top Trending Brands on Twitter [Infographic])
55 notes (via thenextweb)
(Source: engage365.org)
by Marvin McTaw
What’s In This Article?
One of the more interesting things event planners have been doing over the years is to extend the life-cycle of their events and build year-round communities. While we applaud the effort, I think it’s a bit ridiculous to expect your attendees to stay fully engagedwith your event, year round. Let me be clear: I am not advocating no interaction with attendees, I am however suggesting you change your paradigm to this: maximize full engagement while you have attendees attention and use additional interactions as a way to buttress and magnify the impact while you have their attention.
South by Southwest (“SXSW”) is one of the largest and best known annual events in the world. SXSW takes place every year for about 10 days around the second week in March (March 9-18 in 2012) and is recognized as one of the best run conferences and festivals focused on technology, film and music. It has an estimated $167 million impact on the local Austin, TX economy and is has profits (i.e. revenues - expenses) of $100+ million.
Event organizers envy the year round engagement strategy SXSW has with it’s audience including using things like Panel Picker where everyone regardless of whether they are an attendee, sponsor, exhibitor…or alien has a voice. This strategy has worked for SXSW, but is it worth it? And furthermore, can you replicate it for your event?
Google is the undisputed market leader in internet search with 66.6% market share in the US. Google provides a way to track historical search volume for terms with Google Trends. Below is a Google Trends chart for the past eight years for SXSW. While there are definitely limitations, search volume is a good way to way to determine what people are looking for and when they are looking for it.
I’ve narrowed the Google Trends chart down to only show activity in 2011:
I’ve noticed a fairly consistent pattern in these charts that reminds me of my oldest sister’s days playing volleyball in high school and college:
I’ve tried this search for a number of widely known conferences, festivals and conventionsand they all seem to have the same “Bump, Set, Spike” pattern.
Click Here To See If Your Event Has The Same “Bump, Set, Spike” Pattern
I will note that with music festivals, there seems to be significant traffic volume increases associated with lineup releases. These releases can match or even exceed the volume during the “Set” period which occurs during the event. This is likely due to the large fan base of some artists finding, sharing and promoting their favorite artists’ gigs. Music festivals should leverage their artists’ brands to help promote their event.
Some will argue that looking at search activity is a bit misleading because it only tracks behaviors on search engines and doesn’t track the totality of engagement with attendees. I agree with this statement and so have extended my analysis to include website engagement estimates from Alexa and our own network of conference and festival sites using the Sched.org free content management system.
Note: Panel Picker Spike
There is a smaller “boomlet” in pageviews that happens in the August-September period. Those increases can be attributed to the SXSW Panel Picker where potential speakers and panelists promote their proposed sessions in order to be picked to be a part of the SXSW Interactive Conference the following year.
Our free content management system (“CMS”) helps conference and festival organizers control and publish information to their event’s website. It is an integrated system focused on the individual elements that make up your event: sessions, speakers, sponsors, exhibitors and attendees. Event organizers use our CMS in order to
While it is not a perfect indicator of total engagement, it is a relatively good proxy for the attention of the audience interested in the event i.e. attendees and potential attendees.
I reviewed several conference and festival sites and once again, they all seem to follow the same “Bump, Set, Spike” pattern we’ve repeatedly seen. This pattern also applies to other metrics including unique pageviews and in many cases, average time on site.
While I don’t have complete attendee engagement information, the signals provided by the Bump, Set, Spike pattern are pretty clear and lead me to one main conclusion: attendees do not pay attention to or engage with your event until they have to. The “have to” part could be a registration deadline, some internal deadline for purchase approval or the biggest trigger, the actual start of your event.
Most likely, your event is not SXSW and can not be SXSW as you do not have the size or resources of SXSW. Do not be fooled: SXSW is a major corporation with dozens of full time staff members, probably thousands of volunteersand $100+ million in annual profits dedicated to making 10 days in March awesome. SXSW has the time and dedicated resources to execute a year round strategy.
Given the resource constrained environmentplanners generally find themselves in, most events would be better served by shifting their focus from year-round engagement to making the most of the time they have with attendees.
Once again, I am not advocating complete radio silence. I am advocating
Frankly, your attendees don’t want to hear from you anyway…unless you have something useful or interesting to say.
Do you think pursuing a year-round engagement strategy is prudent or do you think you should stick to maximizing the time you have? What smart, easy measures do you take to extend your event’s life cycle? Do you think your event can be like SXSW? Why or Why Not?
Alyssa over at the Small Business Bonfire recently posted an article titled “How To Promote Yourself Without Being A Jerk”. Alyssa makes several good points about promoting your small business with this being one of my favorite quotes:
You may have the best partner, PR agency and support system possible, but if you are not proactively advocating for yourself, you can’t expect anyone else to do it for you.
This article got me thinking a lot about how events can promote themselves to their audience because most events are businesses supporting the livelihood of real, hard-working people. Here’s my take on how Alyssa’s article translates into actionable steps for conferences, festivals and meetings.
Alyssa’s first piece of advice is to focus on the quality of your product which will help increase your level of conviction when you’re promoting your product. For your event, this means getting a lot of things right like:
Since there are so many things involved with planning a great event, I am a big advocate of simplifying your event. I know I’m going to sound like a GOP Presidential Candidate butyou need to make cuts: cut your number of topics, cut your number of sessions, cut your number of speakers, even cut your number of attendees. This will allow you to focus on the things that will help to make your conference or festival great.
Reciprocity without the expectation of anything in return is big in Alyssa’s book and I couldn’t agree more.
It irks me when I see people promoting themselves to the extreme, asking others to do the same for them, and offering not even a whisper of support in return…To take it even further, you need to not only promote others, but do it without an expectation of reciprocity. Yes, that’s right. You need to be reciprocal, but not expect it in return.
What this means for your conference is to promote your attendees without the expectation that they will register early or help you promote it to their network. The fact of the matter is that most people are busy and won’t pay attention until they absolutely have to. Ideas to help you promote others includes:
Arrogance is one of things that pisses both Alyssa and me off. Don’t think just because your event is the “premier” event of a particular industry or subject area that people should care or automatically support you. Be humble, respect people’s time, energy and efforts and…
A simple “thank you” can be one of the most powerful ways to earn respect and make your self-promotion efforts more tolerable.
You should always thank your attendees, sponsors, exhibitors and other supporters for helping to promote your conference. There are several ways you can do this including:
One of the best ways to help promote your event is by giving your audience ownership: ask them for their help, support, feedback and ideas…and let them know you will be incorporating as much of their feedback as you can. Even if you don’t agree with their opinions, the very act of asking your audience’s opinion can buy you a bushel of goodwill!
I thoroughly enjoy not only this article, but all of Alyssa’s articles. She is up for the Small Business Influencer Award so please go and vote for her here. She deserves it!
[Update: Apparently I’m a little late because Alyssa has already won! Congratulations!]
What are some non-jerk ways you promote your event? What jerk-style ways have you seen conference or festivals being promoted? What is the most annoying way you have seen or experienced a conference or festival being promoted?
