Community In-Person Events
(posted by Holly Pendleton)
• …(came in part way through)…
• Kiosk events – where different groups set-up kiosks and the event occurs over 4 hours w/ cocktails and food
• The secret is to get the most influential people in the industry, community, company, -- if they come, others will follow
• Corporate blog to document the event w/ text and pictures
• Have people essentially hand in their notes – notes on very specific topics (I have this practice I can share / I learned something new that I think I can apply …) – combine these notes and have it as an output / deliverable of the conference, not jus the handouts / presentations provided during the event
• Impact measurement
• Community 2.0 conference
• Make sure the event exemplifies the topic of the event
• Learn how to let go to gain more
• Support the organic communities that evolve (buy the first round of drinks)
(posted by Angela Low)
• Event w/food (usually 5-9pm) followed with a 1 1/2 hour panel for Q&A (shared by Matt from Yahoo previous w/eBay)
• Bring a few execs
• Does touching 100 people at about $20k = success?
• MeetUp more successful
• Can't measure - creates goodwill w/community
• More informal events - do more unstructure
• More community event vs corporate driven event
• eBay - found people on forums were 4x as valuable
• Execs/co fear getting too close to customers
• Second level relationship w/account managers to see what they need & work w/Community Manager to help put programs together (another way to involve others in the company)
• Employees need to be a part of community events (mingle/talk to customers - especially influencers)
• Support customer evangelist - aka influencers
• Birthday party event (for the company)
• Get top 10 influencers to event
• Host online event to create excitement
• Online Conference - Holly found most valuable... networking, connecting with experts in the area & start instant conversations
• How to communicate post-event? Blog, survey
• Need clear objective
• Keep connections going past event to get most value out of the event
• Correlate offline with online
• Multiple touch points
• Support organic growth
• Swag is awesome!
• Feedback - share it, log it
• Build agenda ahead of time
Jeremiah's Notes:
How to have a Community Event (in real life)<br> This was a session that I lead and encouraged feedback, I got a ton of knoweldge that will apply to future events that I do, as you may know, I’ve held events at Hitachi, Lunch 2.0 and was involved with the famous BlogHaus with PodTech.
What’s a community event? It’s like an open house, or as I was quoted in by the SFgate, a tupperware party!
-Define event objectives first, measurement is worthless if this isn’t defined upfront
-Let go to gain more, don’t control as much, learn how to let community lead, less structured
-There’s a correlation of strong online and offline communities to product growth, (autodesk and ebay)
-Multiple touchpoints are required, offline events don’t just happen, other things occur, smaller groups will segment.
-Support organic events: users may form groups without companies, learn how to support (promote, pay, or send folks)
-Bad reputation? Consider inviting a community to your campus
-Good giveaways are important, they are trophys, ignore the cheap junk that breaks, it’s a reflection of your brand
-Good brands can get away with cheap schwag
-Make sure your employees talk to guests and be friendly, (use real names on nametags)
-Don’t exploit community, don’t force them to take pics, blog, or do un-natural things.
-Best way to promote event? Invite influencers who will ’sneeze’ for you.
-Don’t pitch to them, make presentations opt-in. Better yet, consider creating feedback sessions where customers can play, hack, or improve products.
-Try an online event first, watch relationships form, let community define objective –a great precursor.
-Communicate internally he success and measurements and improvements
-Externally (maybe corporate blog) and capture event, pics, and link to others.
Page Last Updated: Jun 7 3:24pm by Bill Johnston