We’ve all experienced it. The hallways of the conference are buzzing with chatter about the event. Attendees are discussing what’s working, what isn’t, why the organizers planned it this way, what they are happy about and what’s discouraging them.

As meeting and event planners, we often wish we could be a fly on the wall listening to everyone’s discussions all at once. With today’s social media tools, we can engage in discussions with our registrants before, during and after the big event. Now, we can capture those hallway conversations and respond in real time. So, where do you start?

1. Create and encourage a culture of listening.

Listening is something that every staff member can and should do, and the organization’s principals should lead by example. Staff should listen in the hallways, invite feedback on evaluations and encourage attendees to provide comments and concerns to any staff member both face to face and through the social media tools available. The event is all about attendee, not you the meeting planner.

2. Develop a system for capturing feedback and ways to respond.

a. Setup an event presence in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media tools.
In today’s web world, people go to several different sites to find information about an event. They no longer turn only to your organization or event website. They turn to their friends, colleagues and compadres. They also turn to the social media tools they use and you can help them by setting up “listening and chatting posts” within each social property. Twitter Tip: When using Twitter, identify one person to manage each event account and encourage them to list their name in the profile. For example Jeff4CVG09 meaning Jeff for CONVERGE 2009.

b. Decide who will be the champion for each account, keep the information updated and communicate to people within that network about the event.
Encourage the champions to provide outstanding customer service and do the right thing for the attendees when challenges arise. Let your team members know that you will back them with their decisions to provide outstanding customer service to the attendee.

c. Publicize the locations for your listening and chat posts on all your print and electronic materials.
For Twitter, establish a hashtag (#nameofevent). Ask attendees and interested parties to use that hashtag when sending tweets about the event. By using Twitter Search, Tweetchat. com, Tweetgrid.com or other tools, you can follow the back channel and view what attendees are saying about the conference.

d. Identify and refine keywords that you will use to monitor conversations and posts about your event.
Avoid generic words and if your event or organization contains generic terms, use Boolean operators like “and” or “not.”Use Tweetbeep.com to keep track of Twitter conversations mentioning your event and Google Alerts to monitor web posts that use the search terms you identify. Set up RSS feeds to monitor what bloggers are saying about the event as well.

e. Decide how you will analyze the results you capture and share insights with other team members.

3. When “listening” to your customers identify patterns and engage the attendees in conversation.

Use the following simple KD Paine model. If the issue is not a problem, keep track of themes and positives. If the issue is a problem, divide it into two groups, “Big” and “Little” problems. Big problems probably deserve the attention of superiors and your PR team immediately. Fix little problems as quickly as possible, keep track of themes, responses and outcomes, and be prepared to discuss.

4. If listening is an art, responding should be a science.

Once you’ve been listening to your attendees, it’s time to respond. Answer basic questions as quickly and succinctly as you can. If you hear negative feedback, keep your cool. Don’t respond during an emotional hijack and wait until your emotions have settled, 15-20 minutes from the time of the initial shock. Thus the science part of the response. Politely thank the commenter for their negative feedback, ask them how they would like the problem resolved or what they would suggest you do differently. If the commenter has inaccurate information, address that information with facts. Then, most importantly, invite the commenter to continue to provide feedback. Whatever you do, don’t take the conversation offline because there are many others watching the conversation and want to see what you’re going to do. If you’re thankful and respectful to the attendees, even those giving you negative feedback, it will result in a positive experience for all.

In the end, the more you listen and respond proactively, the higher your attendee satisfaction will be. Here’s to the “Art of Listening and Science of Responding.”

Here are the slides for my presentation. If you attended and had questions, now the time to comment.




View more presentations from Julius Solaris. (tags: twitter events

Update: Here’s a transcript of the presentation. Click here for the pdf.

LeWeb08 was a crucial appointment for Internet startups, held in Paris few days ago. The conference was packed with obstacles, but I learned a great lesson: watching events online is a great thing.

I think online and offline are seriously connected. More than most of the Internet professionals suggest. I am of the opinion that every event should have a strong technological infrastructure, to allow people who cannot be there to consume the event. If you prefer, monetizing that as well.

LeWeb was packed misadventures. They spent more than €100K for wireless Internet connection,which was completely unreliable for the whole two days. They also had a serious problem with room heating leaving attendees in freezing cold.

Eureka

A lot of people commented on the above but forgot to celebrate the great success of LeWeb, mostly thanks to rezpondr a startup funded and helped by www.sleepydog.net which equals @philcampbell and @sleepydog

These guys, who represent the only real spark of creativity in this dull, credit crunch depressed, same old London, gave me the opportunity to connect to one page where I could find:

- a Ustream streaming of the event

- all the pictures from flickr tagged leweb

- all the seesmic videos tagged leweb

- all the qik videos tagged leweb

- all the twitter discussions tagged leweb

I had a chat with @philcampbell and he told me that:

…the idea is that a user/group/event can bring together livestreams and social content into one location to make the viewing experience more rounded for the user watching.   The content is displayed in a time based manner with content running from left to right. Newest content first.  Each piece of media has a lightbox on which the user can perform actions with that media.   If the domain is owned by the user that logs in you can also do various transcoding and distribution methods to convert media in a variety of formats.

If the above link no longer works, you can see a screenshot below (click to expand) or check eventca.st :

Few results that may interest you

- I listened to the talks in my nice and warm living room & with reliable internet connection.

- I had the chance to see pictures and videos in real time from all the other rooms as well.

- I read reactions of people listening and discussed with them during the panels over twitter.

- I networked with twitter users who were doing the same thing I was and established great relationships which are still going on.

- We peaked 3000 people watching and interacting through the live chat.

My suggestions

- Don’t bother yourself trying to understand whether leWeb was a success or not.

- Think about how the way we consume events is dramatically changing.

- Think about how perception of people attending your events is changing and expectations accordingly.

- Think about new audiences in New York when you are running an event in Japan and new ways of monetizing it.

- Think about twitter as the most revolutionary Internet tool within the events arena.

- Think about all of the above soon!

If you are experiencing the negative impact of the economic crisis or you find very difficult to keep up with new technologies this post will help you in keeping up.

I am not sure if you are aware but there is a community of event professionals which is facing new economic and technology challenges brilliantly. I talk to them over twitter, I see them interacting in the Linkedin Discussions, I meet them at free networking events or at BarCamps. They save money using free software, the cut budgets promoting on social networks the maximise satisfaction by integrating new technologies.

There are few easy steps to keep yourself ahead of the game and be up to date with what is going on with Event Planning 2.0. I’ll be happy to assist you in this and you will notice most of the first steps involve me. Nonetehelss, as soon as you’ll join, you will find like minded people willing to help, possibly in your area and with great expertise.

1. Join the Linkedin Events Group and add me as a direct contact there.

Get in touch with me, send me messages and participate to discussions.

You cannot afford to be shy or to just read. Get active.

I’ll be soon hosting a free webinar on how to get a better job using Linkedin, followed by an online speed networking session. You should not miss that! All the info in the Linkedin Events group discussions.

2. Join the group networking events in your area.

Upcoming Events include:

Subscribe to Spicy Networking for more information

3. Join twitter and add me as a contact.

Most of the people I follow on twitter know how things should be made. Feel free to bulk add them. If I am not following you on twitter send a message saying ” @tojulius I am following you! ”

4. Attend a BarCamp

You will find a complete list at the official website.

If you are in London I am organizing ecoCampLondon and will be attending MediaCampLondon. It’s usually free so come and say hi.

You will learn a lot on new trends in events and how you can empower attendees.

5. Join Xing and add me to your network

Xing is very similar to Linkedin. I am planning to develop few projects there as well so as for Linkedin, start being active.

CitySocialising is a great local service to help beating the personal barriers that prevent you from getting a better job, improving your social life, being active. Apart from that, it is an awesome threat to traditional event professionals.

Jo is organising Sunday lunch Hampstead and walk and has invited you to attend.

Graham is organising 18-20s west end drinks! and has invited you to attend.

Kelly is organising Cocktail tasting class and has invited you to attend.

I don’t know who Jo, Graham or Kelly are but hey, these events are cool! Usually these kind of mail makes it very quickly to my Spam folder but in this instance I just can’t do it. The events are very relevant, targeted on my area and to my needs. What if I’ll get a special invitation tomorrow to an unmissable event?

What is it?

I had the chance to have a look at how Sanchita, the CEO, explains the reasoning behind CitySocialising.com:

The idea for CitySocialising came from our research into the social requirements of professionals living and working in UK cities. We found that a huge percentage of those in their 20s and 30s were particularly interested in meeting people in London and expand their circle of friends, and identified that this was because:

- There’s a higher likelihood of people in this age group relocating to new cities for work or with partners, arriving with none or few friends in the area.
- Existing friends are more likely to be settling in relationships or moving away in their 20s & 30s, meaning that finding new friends to socialise with is more appealing.
- Social lives can become stale, or social circles dissipate after relationship breakdowns, and opportunities to meet new people are reduced.
- Increasing demands at work allows less time to organise the social lives that suit them.

I can immediately tell you this is not like Meetup.com.

Well, first of all you need to pay to attend members events. At the very beginning I thought this was not a good idea. 30K members in the UK answered my question though. Money is indeed a good way to test motivation and they priced very well.

Secondly they select event hosts in their user base.

Why should you care?

- If you got out from the “I am a professional planner and there is no one as cool as me, or if there is, I got better shoes” attitude, you realized your competition is now users. If you got skills you can make your way into whatever community, if you don’t … well, if you are still reading, I am sure you do!

- You should explore the pricing. I told you free is the new black, almost free is fine, giving the perception it is for free relying on an upfront payment it’s interesting.

- If your brand is out of ideas and you don’t know how to develop existing as well as new relationships, follow this suggestion. Throw your Kotler in the garbage because things are changing fast and only the skilled are taking advantage. Do your research, sponsor user generated events and you will develop intimate connections with your customers.

Link to CitySocialising.com

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