Make an event to be proud of — #SMW (Social Media Week) & Beyond…

Whilst the spark for this has been this week’s SMW events what I’m hoping to cover here is a few tips on how to create an event/talk for any industry, subject, or business, which puts the audience first.

Putting the audience first… you know, the thing us marketers are all about, engaging people, creating things personal to our audience and being empathetic — understanding how they feel and how we can make their experiences better.

Over the last 5 years I’ve been to quite a few social media week (and other) talks, some great, some ok and some well, a complete waste of time. I’m sure that wasn’t how the event organisers intended me to feel. I certainly didn’t buy anything from them.

So here’s a few tips on how to make sure you don’t run an event where someone walks away feeling like I did (at various points along the scale from that was ok, to I want that hour of my life back).

Signage

Think about how easy your location is to find, people come from near and far (you’ll be surprised just how far) and the last thing you want is for them to have trouble finding you after a long journey, potentially missing the first bit and having to walk into a room where everyone turns to look at them. It leaves them flustered and unable to appreciate the first part of the event.

Actions:

Walk the route they might take from nearest stations or common locations, follow Google maps and identify the confusing points, in those places put up posters or have people present on the day to direct (with a smile). Specify the company and the talk/event if there are multiple happening in the same area/venue.

Logistics

Test the environment — Whether you’re expecting people to be there for 1 hour or a whole day it’s really important to check everything about the space to make sure the environment doesn’t take away from the content.

Actions:

• Check the temperature and how you’ll adjust it should it change drastically throughout the event. A lot of bodies creates a lot of heat — if your solution is to open the windows or turn on a fan how noisy will that be?
• Check the sound from various points in the room — furthest from the speakers, closest to the windows / doors etc and right by the speakers, nowhere should be too loud, or too quiet.
• Check the seating — I’m no princess and the pea by any means, but sometimes I’ve been in so much pain from the uncomfortable ‘trendy’ seats at events. So much so I can’t concentrate on the talk, I’m focused more on trying to get comfortable.
• Check there’s a variety of food and the utensils are suitable for what you provide — so basic, but I’ve tried to eat a yogurt with a fork before thanks to one event…
• If you have staff around make it known who they are, t-shirts / lanyards
• Don’t have a photographer getting in the way of the stage and screens, snapping away for the whole event. It’s very distracting. A good photographer will get the shot in less time and will be sensitive to disturbing the event.
• Make it easy for people to slip in late and find a seat by encouraging everyone to leave the gaps only on the side closest to the entrance. You may think it sounds a little controlling or awkward, but it’s even more awkward for everyone when someone has to come in get everyone to shuffle up, pick up their stuff off the seats in front of them so that the ‘late comer’ can find the only seats available the other side of the room.

The Event / Talk

Give an overview of the event and the schedule — ask if there are any initial questions, Q&A’s are great at the end of a talk, some of the great talks I’ve been to have asked if there’s anything in particular anyone at the event wants to hear in-depth about. Understand the audiences expectations and interests, the degree in which you respond to them is up to you, but it at least gives you the heads up and makes sure they know what they’re going to get.

Schedule — Stick to the schedule. Be punctual starting and moving on, you don’t want someone having to leave because you’ve over run before they’ve actually heard the bit they came for.

The presentation — A lot of classes you go to these days notify you at the beginning that you’ll get the presentation sent to you after so that you don’t get caught up trying to take notes. Why can’t this be the same for talks, if someone has signed up you can easily share the presentation with them by email after and if they haven’t it’s a good way to get their email. Also make sure the key points are actually written on the slides, I recently went to a talk where everything useful was said and the slides had no value.

You vs the subject — This is something I feel a lot of people don’t consider, or make the wrong decision on. People have signed up because they are interested in the topic AND you. So make sure you provide both, but the important thing is how you talk about yourself. SMW free talks are such an amazing idea, the concept being; an agency/business can open up their doors, inviting people in to learn about a subject, hear about the hosts own experiences on the subject and my favourite bit — to have a nosey in offices all around the city.

The thing that often lets this fantastic idea down is the ratio of time spent talking about their own company — and how they talk about their experiences. Whilst this is an opportunity for new business for them the way in which it’s gone about can leave a sour taste for those attending.

Sharing your process is good. Sharing how others can use/adapt the process and providing tips and templates is spot on.

Sharing the challenges you’ve faced is good. Sharing how you overcame them and how others can do the same is spot on.

Sharing your successes is ok. Sharing what the impact of the success was on your future process is great.

Sharing your learnings is spot on!

Turn ‘me, me, topic’ into ‘me, topic, you/anyone’.

Turn past events/learnings into what can be done better in the future.

Q&A’s

Don’t wait until the end to ask a room full of people — who potentially have back ache, are shivering from a draft and now have to rush off back to work or other arrangements — to ask a question, as they’ll most likely have forgotten (hopefully not if you’ve followed the tips above!).

Some people also get incredibly anxious about asking questions when they know all attention will be on them for a few seconds, so give them options.

At the beginning of the event mention you’ll be taking questions throughout via Twitter, put a hashtag up around the room for people to refer to anytime (not just at the start). At the end you can do a mix of hands in there and via Twitter questions.

If you are asking people in the audience a mic is a good idea, or ask the person answering to repeat the question for others to hear).

By having the questions on Twitter others not attending can also contribute, plus if you run out of time you can still respond to them at a later date, extending the events conversation.

Hitting your objective

Let’s face it almost every event is a marketing activity, each with a different goal but inevitably you must achieve something by it.

A few final key points to help you get there:

• Be friendly and personable, but remember your game face — Don’t be flustered and don’t take people off topic when you get a chance to talk to them.
• Ask about why they’re there, don’t go into the conversation as a walking billboard, be a therapist hearing out their challenges (your opportunities)!
• Get their contact details, usually best done before they attend through a signup form, or offering a pdf of the slides if they fill out a form at the event.
• Offer to follow up with a consultation of their situation, probably not even mentioning what you’re offering. Don’t offer them a demo! This isn’t personal.
• Leave them with something. Everyone loves giving gimmicky things at events but why not go out of your way to get something branded that’s cleverly connected to their needs/behaviours. And if you can’t think of anything give them something fun. Not the normal things that people pick up and throw away within a couple of hours (days if you’re lucky). The fact that item is in their life and is irrelevant to them will affect how they feel about you — it shows you don’t understand them after all.

Whilst this is a very basic list of things to consider it’s often the basics that are overlooked — and often the basics that have the biggest impact on impressions!