Marketing is one of the primary drivers for the popularity of trade shows. Simply put, trade shows put your company in a better position to promote itself through effective use of face-to-face marketing from your trade show booths. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take advantage of a more diverse field of marketing tools to maximize your exposure, promote your brand image and bolster your reputation.
Online marketing, in particular social media marketing, is an excellent way to get a great return on your investment by using technology to further publicize your trade show presence and advertise your display stands as well as the rest of the your company’s strategy to the world.
In fact, trade shows provide the perfect opportunity to leverage social media for promotional purposes because many attendees will be following the trade show going’s on using Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Make sure you take advantage of this situation by getting your message out creatively on social media and connecting it with the trade show event.
How do you do this? Well, assuming that your event has a Facebook page and hashtag associated with it (and these days just about every event does), you can post with these in order to increase the visibility of your social media posts, tweets and pins. Make sure that you do this creatively, though. Don’t think that just a picture of your smiling employees in front of some display stands is going to really get people’s attention.
Instead, come up with some cool ideas to attract attention. Try posting ambiguous or strange pictures that can pique the curiosity of your followers. Or make witty comments on universal experiences at the show. Is a lack of bathroom real estate causing a bit of a line? Make a joke about it. Whenever possible, connect the event happenings with your company’s brand and products. This will make your posts timely and entertaining and effectively promotes your brand.
Your trade show booths will really shine if you help promote them by using social media. Make sure that you leverage this low-cost and high-benefit technology in order to maximize the exposure of all of your booths and display stands at your next exhibiting event.