The Situation: Our client, a non-profit leader in education technology leadership, sought to enhance the visibility of their annual education conference by harnessing the power of social media. The client specifically wanted to utilize Twitter to increase conference engagement amongst attendees, and to involve current and prospective members unable to attend.
The Results: In preparation for the last two education conferences (2013 and 2014), C. Blohm & Associates (CB&A) constructed a social media plan for the event, and the weeks leading up to it. A CB&A team member then implemented the plan, including live-tweeting and engagement with attendees onsite during the conference. This plan resulted in a notable increase in followers, which was facilitated by an increase in tweets, retweets, mentions, favorites and link click-throughs prior to and throughout the conference. A variety of education technology enthusiasts and industry leaders, fitting the client’s target audience profile, participated in the education conference conversation via Twitter.
Developing the Strategy
CB&A recommended the client employ diverse strategies to heighten their marketplace visibility. A primary strategy was the use of an official education conference hashtag, which sparked many connections and conversations around the event. Additionally, CB&A laid out a live-tweeting plan for use during conference sessions, expanding their value by making the information and experience accessible to a larger online audience. The plan included cross-promotion of other social media channels, retweeting and replying to attendees and conference participants, and incorporating captivating multimedia.
Learning from Past Tactics
CB&A developed and implemented detailed social media plans for the education conference two years in a row. Using 2013 experiences to create a bigger and better 2014 plan expanded engagement on Twitter, demonstrating the CB&A team’s dynamic ability to stay abreast of effective social media techniques. Just as Twitter feeds are constantly updated with new tweets, so do usage trends shift over time. By monitoring analytics and evolving social media trends, CB&A was able to refine the client’s strategy to yield significantly higher returns during the 2014 conference.
Outcomes
The client posted 361 tweets before and during the conference, with these results:
- 160 more followers
- 602 retweets
- 423 mentions
- 267 favorites
- 743 link click-throughs
The official conference hashtag was used approximately 6,000 times before, during and after the conference, including 4,972 instances during the three days of the event. The client’s Twitter handle accounted for 461 of these tweets, the rest were sent by participants as part of a far-ranging conversation.
Compared to 2013, the 2014 conference strategy resulted in 154 more posts, 356 more retweets and 75 more follows. These increases demonstrate CB&A’s inclination to capitalize on learning opportunities in order to improve social media tactics from one year to the next.
CB&A enhanced the client’s industry visibility by using an effective and modern social media plan. The client realized measurable interaction between both current and prospective members and conference attendees, which contributed to the event’s success.