Why Run a Business Event

To market or build an online community

Published in

Recommendable

3 min readJun 7, 2017

When building an online community why should you run a real world event? Why do successful online and technology centric businesses host large events (Salesforce’s “DreamForce”, Amazon’s “AWS Global Summit” or Googles’s “I/O”)? There are many reasons for each company, Apple (at it’s recent WWDC) connects with it’s platform’s developers, but they all have one thing in common — they connect with people to help grow their business.

Marketing, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Growth, Business in the Spotlight, Growth, Growing, SME

Can Any business run an event?

These events are large, run by global giants but more and smaller companies and startups are beginning to host their own events. I first became aware of this when I spoke at my first ever business event about students helping businesses to grow at a local marketing companies event (see here). This event was an opportunity for the business to connect further with existing clients, build new relationships and expand existing partnerships. They generated two of their biggest clients through their annual event and made a lasting impression on everyone attending. Even SMEs can run great events.

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This was our Launch[/caption]

Does Face-to-Face matter for online businesses?

Salesforce is a wholly online CRM business who primarily communicate with clients and users through email, online chats and phone calls. Yet they host a successful conference annually. It is always great to connect with people face to face, remember ‘people do business with people’ so impressions count. Events go a long way in making a lasting impression especially if the event is great as well. People remember places and people they meet, far better than online impressions, they build a relationship with you which can lead to further business with them or their network. Everyone has a network, if they remember you and your event, then they may share it with their connections and a multiplier effect ensues.

How to benefit after the events finished

Events are a great way to collect great media. It’s easy to create a social media buzz during and after the event and gain new followers and built up channels of influence. It’s important during the event to be sharing what is happening on your channels and to respond to attendees, to further generate a buzz.

Events allow for high-quality photos in front of your branding that you can use over and over again, sharing on media, add to promotional material and promote your next event.

Video is, of course, the new medium which dominates how we interact with information. We love it and capturing talks through video are a way to build up engagement and really position your company as an influencer in your space.

At University, I led a community which was centred around events, we hosted over 3000 students over the year and build a core community over 300+. We helped to start and nurture entrepreneurship revolution at Southampton. I’ve honestly seen how events can motivate people to take action and so to find out how to run a great event click here.

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