The horrible economic trends as well as the impressive movement of user generated events is challenging the traditional scheme of paid events.

If you charge for your events you may soon be in real trouble. If you charge a lot for your events you are probably already facing tough challenges.

The Economy

Pretty straight forward. There are not enough money to be spent on events as before. Companies buying tickets for your conferences are now hesitating on such expenditure. There is simply not the disposable income there used to be. As simple as that.

The Technology

Online meetings are now preferred to conferences. Linkedin/Xing is now preferred to your 3000£/$/€ networking event.

User Generated Events

Meetups, BarCamps, unconferences and the like are now offering free alternatives to your paid events. Getting together a location and asking people to pay for their drinks is now accepted. Nobody wants to mix any more with sponsors, stalls, banners and so forth. Meetups are run by users and most of them are not sponsored. The conventional infrastructure around events is shaking.

Scarcity

You cannot rely any more on scarcity.

I don’t have to wait for big exhibitions to come along in order to network with top professionals. It’s all coming to my city and for free, possibly on a monthly basis.

Now, how do you deal with that? How do you compete with free, zero, nada, niet, niente?

Innovate

You will soon realize that if you manage events conventionally, the demand will drop sensibly.

Few tips.

If you use social media and social networks, if you know what twitter is, if you integrate sponsors gently and wisely, you will definitely find new ways to engage and make a profit.

If you think this is not going to happen and you feel safe where you are, start reading another blog!

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Many people lately have been asking me to promote their events on social networks. My response to most of them is this post.

Social Media and social networks now offer great potential to cut costs on event promotions. Social media and social networks are just buzzwords to gain your attention.

Well now that I do have your attention I’ll tell you how to do it.

1. Linkedin Q&A

Linkedin has a Q&A section. A lot of marketers are using it to push their own conference/event or to get sponsors. Most of the people ask “Who is attending eventname ?”.

Then in the description they will go for paragraphs stating how the conference is going to be great and how you can’t  miss it. I did it myself. Results were appalling and I felt pretty idiot about it.

My suggestions;

- Be engaging in the question. If Frank Sinatra is performing, be catchy and ask “Would you like to meet Frank Sinatra?”.

- Target the need of attendees. If you don’t have great performers or if your objective is different, you want to make sure to be relevant. “Would you like to network with top professionals?” “Come and join us for an entertaining night at eventname”

- Offer something. Announcing is cool, but what’s in it for me reading? Promo codes, discounts, competitions should be part of this process. If you are restating your press release just use different media, it’s not gonna work here.

- Forward the question to those in your network from the event area or within the relevant industry. If you have a small Linkedin network you may want to read this post.

2. Blogs

You probably haven’t noticed that there are plenty of bloggers out there who offer promo codes on their blogs. It’s probably the oldest model to promote events and web 2.0 has revamped it.

How do you get to bloggers?

- Make sure you do your research and contact opinion leaders.

- Double check that they are already doing it. If they don’t do advertising (such as me), they won’t be happy of your pitches.

- Try to understand the point of view of the blogger, display interest for his/her posts and do your homework.

- Be relevant with the reward. Money is not necessary the best way to reward opinionated people.

- Check the Google Page Rank to optimize indexing

3. Mobiles

Hey I am sure you have some advertising budget there. I mean it can’t always be for free.

If so, a little bird told me that iPhone users are great targets.

- AdMob is doing great in integrating advertising in most of the iPhone applications. It is very relevant and personal.

- I also love the way The Deck is integrating ads in Twitterrific, a popular iPhone application for Twitter.

If money is not an option:

- I suggest you publish your event on Eventful. Eventful does integrate with applications such as Where! that displays events close to you, based on your GPS location. GPS is the social networking of the near future and you cannot afford to ignore it.

4. Upcoming

I can’t believe you don’t know Upcoming!

If you are still using direct mail to promote your events, it will proove ineffective shortly.

Upcoming is a strong candidate to become the platform where you publish your events. Eventful is great, but Upcoming has the Yahoo! power to push events socially and make them relevant for a number of people.

- Publishing your event on Upcoming comes at no cost and a 9yrs old kid is completely capable of doing it.

- You can promote your event within Groups and by choosing relevant tags.

- You can also see how many people saved the event to their calendar to manage demand.

5. Facebook

Ok, you know I am not the biggest fan of Facebook, but I feel very stupid ignoring 90+ Million users. Your target should be somewhere in that figure!

- You have an event section on your Facebook profile, as always don’t be lazy and fill it up in every part. Upload logos, pics and videos from previous or related events.

- The social component is very important. As for the Linkedin example I suggest you send the event to your friends and invite them to spread the word. Now, I am aware a lot of people use Facebook for their personal contacts. I have no particular issue with that, although you are missing out on the gigantic proportion of people doing business via Facebook.

I suggest you keep your personal life somewhere else if you want to be out there and get something out of social networks. My approach is to keep my personal stuff offline, full stop.

If you feel all of the above is not enough, feel free to contact me and we’ll discuss it further. If you have your opinion about it, as always, comments are now open!

Image courtesy of ON24

This is a guest post by Cece Salomon-Lee. She is the author of PR Meets Marketing blog and senior marketing communications manager with ON24. While her company recently launched a virtual show product, the thoughts expressed in this posting are not representative of ON24 and are personal views of the author.

I recently read Julius’ post about the 5 signs that you event is Web 1.0. Since virtual trade shows are starting to emerge as another technology offering for event planners, I offered to write a post about this. Consider a virtual show as a lighter version of Second Life.

They’re not exactly an immersive 3D environment. Rather it’s like take a webcast to the next level with a mix of social networking, online presentations, and booth staff.
Virtual trade shows seem a natural way to reduce costs while meeting the exceedingly difficult task of generating results with your marketing programs. But ONLY if you go in knowing what to expect.

There are some distinct differences to be aware of if you plan to participate in or plan a virtual show:

Interactions are Different
Whether it’s catching the person’s eye or approaching a person who’s just entered your booth, you can visually determine when and how to approach someone who comes to your booth at a face-to-face (F2F) event. When you’re online, these physical cues are not available. Unlike F2F, you don’t want to start personal chats with everyone who comes to your virtual booth. Rather, most tend to initiate a chat with you first or engage in a group chat at the booth.

“Staff” the Booth
While interactions in the booth are different it’s very important to “staff” the booth. You would never leave a booth empty in between sessions, right? The came applies for “staffing” a virtual booth. The difference is that you’re doing it from a computer. It’s important that designated individuals are monitoring the show during peak work hours, especially when live presentations are being held.

The difference? You’re not stuck staying at the booth for 10-12 hours. Rather, the shifts can be 1 or 2 hours long - as long as SOMEONE is available to answer any questions or chat with attendees. And since it’s online, you can have more than one chat at a time.

The Show Lives On
Most virtual shows have 1-3 days of “live” content. Meaning that webinars or online presentations are happening on a specific day or time. While most people tend to visit the virtual show during this time, remember, all the presentations, booths and documents live on after this initial rush.
No - you don’t have to be in booth staff purgatory forever. It just means you have to be aware that people may drop by the show occasionally. Be sure to update information and/or presentations to reflect what is accurate for your company.

Conclusion
Virtual trade shows won’t be for everyone. However, it is something to consider if you’re faced with limited budget and reduced travel requirements, while bringing together a group of people around a specific topic. Granted, you may not be networking around the golf course, but you can raise a virtual glass in the communications lounge instead!

The results of a discussion on how to ensure that people who RSVP‘d yes at your free event do actually turn up.

The intrinsic value of free events

I love free events. What I love even more is free events with free drinks. It seems like I am not the only one. It is getting ridiculously awkward to actually pay to get in.

If you did your homework chances are that you can cover expenses and make a profit just relying on sponsors.

Last week I attended a Trade Show, a Meetup, a Twestival and a Barcamp.

In all of those I got free food and drinks, gadgets and I did the best networking ever.

The next time someone shows up and tells you you need to pay 1000£/$/€ to attend a conference or a networking event, bear in mind you are actually paying for the steering wheel of organizer’s SUV.

One problem

Now, from the organizer perspective, getting sponsors may be relatively easy if you have a good target audience. But making sure the audience actually attends the day of the event, that’s a whole different ballgame.

I noticed at one of the above events that 40+ attendees did not show up. That’s a pity because they excluded at least the same number of people, who eventually got together for a parallel event.

My problem

I’ll be soon organizing a free event. Don’t be curious. It will be on the barcamp concept, which we love so much, but I cannot disclose more than that.

The problem is we got space for 60 people and much bigger forecast demand. We want to make sure that those who RSVP Yes actually turn up.

On a first come basis

It doesn’t work, as simple as that. That’s what was used at the above event and the results were upsetting.

A twitter conversation

I decided to ask my supercool twitter pals about it and here’s the conversation

Conclusions

Although I originally thought that money was not an option, I am sure that everybody will be happy to donate to charity.

At this stage this is by far the most accepted alternative. Returning the money could be a bit of an issue. Collecting the money online requires payment of fees and so forth, so in my opinion a straight donation policy with no returning option may work better in terms of planning.

A must is to have a symbolic contribution ranging from 8£ to 10£ sounds good to me (convert if you are not sure). Charging more than that brings SUV thoughts to my mind.

What’s your opinion?

The issue is not closed at all. Do you have an engaging way to enusre attendance? Do we need to use money?

PerfectTablePlan helps you in making wise seating choices, which you obviously don’t want to get wrong.

Andy sent me over a complimentary copy of PerfectTablePlan (now what a great way to be nice with me) for me to play and I loved it.

You know I am a fan of free software and possibly open source as well, but what the hell PerfectTablePlan is not just a small gadget, it actually helps and it is extremely cheap.

I don’t like guys charging hundreds of dollars and selling air, on the same perspective I am fine with those trying hard to make a living and passionate about something.

What I liked:

- Auto wizard once you have set the type of relationship between guests.

- Attention to details. Because it’s all about that. Being able to manage RSVP as well is key.

- Intuitive platform. You do not have to be Linus Torvalds to make it work.

- Importing feature. Import your spreadsheet and erase Excel from your system.

- Tutorials. They got very easy tutorials to guide you. It takes less than an hour to understand all the features

I found the program not buggy at all and funny. If you are planning a wedding you will love marking two people who are not meant to seat next to each other with a death-sign. Hilarious.

Regardless the pitching and promotion, which I am not fond of anyway, they have been very nice and seem very passionate and gentle. That definitely deserved our attention.

PerfectTablePlan Website

Photo by: Cristiano Betta

Smart brands are tackling Meetups to get targeted audience and generate buzz.

I already talked about using Meetups to target your audience and create relevant experiences. Last night Smirnoff provided me a case study and possibly a good review.

The London Bloggers Meetup is one of the most vibrant Meetups of the city. Andy Bargery manages it in an exceptional way.

A great mix of professionals, creative people and hobbyists gather monthly to exchange opinions about their passion.

Several brands have taken advantage of such great mix in the last months, to name a few Berocca and Stella Artois.

Last night Smirnoff displayed a great way to engage on a very personal level.

Apart from free drinks , which are obviously more than welcome, they introduced cocktail classes. The bartender customized the drink according to your blog and your persona.

The location was amazing and the PR agency did extremely well.

Smirnoff was very gentle and did not push the night or show a “do this/do that attitude”. The atmosphere and level of engagement raised to the roof.

Some bullet points for you to enjoy:

- Engage on a personal level
- Free drinks are cool but make me learn something
- Spoil me as an intelligent person and according to who I am
- Be gentle, don’t push the night
- Use Meetups to target opinion leaders, organizers are eager to get sponsors.

Vote: 8,5

Moreganize allows you to share polls, surveys and to do’s so you can make everyone attending your meeting happy.

We recently featured Gathergrid and pretty much loved the idea of being able to question your attendees to work out the best time to meet.

Moreganize pushes the concept even further introducing shared to do’s, polls and surveys.

We are all facing RSVP issues nowadays and as the calendar gets crowded we definitely want to make sure that our meeting is going to be a success.

We were impressed by the ease of registration of Moreganize, which ticks off the annoying “I have to register to another service” thingy.

Here are few examples of what you can do with the service.

- Survey
- To do List
- Opinion poll

Link to Moreganize

Photo by: luc legay

The latest posts have talked extensively on how it is increasingly important to integrate twitter in events. This post answers the whys and hows.

I was recently at ad:tech London and complained on how they did not integrate twitter during the event, although a lot of people attending the event were twitting about it. Last weekend I attended BarCampLondon5 and @cyberdees and @cianw, members of the eBay organization, showed me how to embed the service.

What is twitter?

Why you need to integrate twitter in your event?

- Creating @eventname will help you in communicating with your attendees and collect early feedback about your choices
- Using @eventname to talk about the event will help in actually promoting the event in the community and get more sponsors
- Telling people to use #eventname will help to group the talks about your event under one tag. Hashtag as well as @eventtrack aggregate events by #eventname. It will be then easy to track discussion, feedback and user experience.
- Live twitting, the ability to see on one screen the live twits during an event, helps twitterers to recognize themselves and network more efficiently.

How do you integrate twitter in your event?

- Use a large monitor connected to a computer
- Download Adobe AIr and TwitterCamp
- Make sure that the screen can be read easily by attendees

This is how they did it at BarCampLondon5

Comments and suggestions

Have you used twitter at your event? Then please share your experience.

Harvest Twestival was held on the 25th of September for the joy of 220 Twitter people. Here is a short review of the event.

Planning

You could definitely tell that the event was mostly planned via Twitter. I remember logging in on the official website 10 days before the event and there was only two sponsors there. As the event came closer and the community started to be interested, at least 6 more sponsors jumped on board. Impressive.

People

My question before the event was how do you actually make sure that there is a good mix of people attending the event? Will there be 14yrs old kids mixed with Social Media experts in their 50s?

This was the single aspect that impressed me the most. The mix was perfect, I could run into good business contacts, as well as in friends or funny people. The twitter community did definitely defined itself at the event as very energetic, full of great ideas and very sociable. Remarkable.

Location & Logistics

Location was the Doon, a trendy Trafalgar square club. @amandita managed everything smoothly. Free drinks were poured efficiently (maybe too efficiently in my case) and the premises served the purpose. Although some peeps were complaining about the music being to loud, there were areas in the back dedicated to talking with no noise whatsoever.

I think that the logistics really reflected the twitter environment. The “everyone section” where noise is obviously there, but also the “you and your friends” area where things are calmer and deeper talks take place. I suggest this formula for those willing to organize one. Successful.

Treats

Another plus was definitely the raffle (with money donated to charity) and really relevant prizes. Moo was on board and that is very cool if you like to be social. Yummy.

What I did not like

Nothing much, but obviously integrating twitter on a screen with live twits was a must and possibly we’ll see that at next editions. Details count.

Vote:8

P.S. If you don’t use twitter and do not have a clue of what I am talking about, start using it right now, improve your business and internet relationships and feel free to follow me.

Other reviews of the event (thanks Pudding relation for the list):

Pudding Relations
TechCrunch UK
Current TV
Diffusion PR
Huddle
Londonist
Sizemore
Benjamin Ellis
Social PRobiotic
One Size Fits One
Jazamatazz
Richard
This Is Now
Fake Plastic Noodles
The A to E
Toodlepip
Girl About Web

Mark just got me in the world of Mikons, a great way to communicate, but most of all a tremendous networking ice-breaker.

When you are networking reaching out to people at events it is always difficult to skim your targets. Most of us do that with appearances but possibly there is no worst method. There is a clear need to identify who is in front of you, at least in a simple way. If I am vegetarian, I want no meat lovers in my network, at least not for the night. Event professionals can definitely help in making things easier.

Introducing Mikons

“It’s an idea in the form of a picture” they say at their website. Nice. I want to know more.

How can you use Mikons to tell your story?

- Create or use a Mikon for your club
- Create or use a Mikon for your clan or guild
- your hobbies: biking, scrapbooking, book clubs, drinking, chess, reading, movies
- your beliefs: religion, political affiliation, gender identification,
- an experience or aspect of your personal story,cancer survivor, entrepreneur,
- a concept you want to share
- your preferences: paper or plastic? coffee or tea? vinyl or digital?

How can I use Mikons in my event?

During event registration, attendees get a custom sheet of iconic stickers that relate to the theme of the event and their personality traits. Event planners can create custom sheets for any type of event and personality traits or professional skills they wish to expose between attendees.

Planning my next networking event it’s definitely easier.

Link to MikonMixers