What's Hot: New Social Media Tool
By Marlane Bundock If you're not yet familiar with social media tools such as
Twitter.com, you may not know the power that they have to drum up a buzz about your events. However, if you've already used websites like Twitter to enhance attendees'—and potential attendees'—ability to chat with each other before, during and after an event, then you know that social media websites can be an undeniably influential tool for meeting planners today.
For example, Meeting Professionals International (MPI) used Twitter to relay messages about their World Educational Conference (WEC) held in July. Any Twitter user who was interested in learning about or discussing the conference used the hashtag: #MPIWEC. Hashtags allow certain topics on social media webpages to be easily searched for.
In August, the website
Twubs.com, launched a new hashtag registry for the meeting planning industry. Twubs, a social media aggregator of Twitter, YouTube, TwitPic, RSS and other feeds around hashtags, allows event-based hashtags such as MPI's WEC to be registered, which prevents multiple uses, helps refine the conversation and helps users find conversations relevant to their interests, according to Tony Ferraro, president of Twubs.
"We are committed," Ferraro said, "to increasing the value and experience of live events. Twubs provides tools that empower event organizers and allows them further engage conversation before, during and after the event, as well as allow remote attendees to participate. Our goal is to help event organizers maximize their relationship equity throughout the year."
In addition, Twubs has enhanced its "Live Event Suite" functionality for events by adding:
—Branded live moderation, where show organizers can take full control of their branding and overall experience in their own Twubs;
—Enhanced hashtag options, which allows two or more feeds to be merged into one; and
—Increased Spam Protection, where an administrator of the Twubs page can block users and words from their Twubs website.
Since its launch earlier this year, Twub's Event Suite has been used by more than 30 organizations to stream live events and conferences in the United States and abroad.
For example, the organizers of the Hillsong Conference 2009, a religious-based gathering that brought 25,000 to Sydney, Australia, used the website to "extend their reach" to their audience, Ferraro said. The conference's Twub page was customized to consist of live streaming of the event, real-time tweets of those attending or watching remotely, and a live moderation panel as well as a place to archive pictures, videos, web links, etc. affiliated with the conference.
"The live moderation panel brought relevant questions onto a large screen for the audience," Ferraro said. "Both attendees and participants watching from their computers remotely were able to participate through posting questions to Twitter by including the hashtag #hillsong09 in their tweet."
ConventionSouth's Special Industry Partners are working with us to further enhance the South's position as the number one destination for meetings, conventions and other group events. Click on a partner's name or logo for more destination data.
