1. Carla Pendergraft, CMP Waco Convention & Visitors Bureau Social Media for Meeting Planners

2. What Social Media are You Using Personally? (Poll)  Facebook  Twitter  LinkedIn  MySpace  YouTube  Flickr  Other

3. What Social Media is your Agency Using?  Facebook Fan Page  Twitter  LinkedIn Group or Profile  Wiki  MySpace  YouTube  Flickr  None  Other?

4. Definition of Social Media  “Social media websites enable people to post, comment, share content, and participate in a community.”

5.  It’s about conversations and communities  Relationships, not selling  It requires a new way of thinking.  Push vs. Pull; Telling vs. Asking  Allows your audience to connect with you and with each other.

6. ◦ Facebook: 400 million users  700,000 Fan Pages ◦ Twitter: 75 million users ◦ YouTube: 100 million visitors/month ◦ LinkedIn: 50 million users ◦ Flickr: 4 billion images ◦ Blogs: Over 112 million ◦ Wikipedia: 12 million registered users, 20 million pages And new social communities are added every day.

7.  Social networking now accounts for 11% of all time spent online in the US.  A third of adults post at least once a week to social sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  A quarter of adults publish a blog and upload video/audio they created.  ~60% maintain a profile on a social networking site. Source: Forrester Research, 1/10

8.  Fear of potential legal issues ◦ Unfamiliarity with best practices for social media policies ◦ Open Records Act ◦ Open Meetings Act  Lack of interest by top management  Hostility of IT Dept. – fear of viruses, etc.  Unsure of return on investment – time drain  Unfamiliarity with the tools themselves  Fear of mixing personal with business

9.  Start your own presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Learn to use the tools on your own, at home.  That way, when you’re given access, you will already know how to use them.

10. ◦ FooCamps, unconferences, BarCamps – All sessions are provided by participants ◦ Wikis are potentially the most powerful tool out there for Meeting Planners. ◦ Twitter and Facebook are starting to be used by meeting planners.

11.  Well suited when people don’t work in the same office but must collaborate on projects, plans, etc.  Email is not efficient for discussing ideas  Wikis are web pages anyone can edit  Wikispaces.com ◦ Ad-supported: free ◦ No ads: $5/month ◦ No ads plus custom domain name: $20/month

17.  Find these convention’s pages on Facebook, and notice what they are posting about. ◦ Links to main convention website ◦ Asking them to apply for scholarships ◦ What sessions would you like to see? ◦ Things to see and do in the host city ◦ Info on room block status ◦ What was your favorite part of the convention?

20.  Tweets by their web manager  YouTube Video Contest  Links to convention page on website

21.  Use a Tweetdeck to save a search on your organization’s name or other key words.  Anytime anyone in the world uses those key words, you’ll see the tweet.  You don’t have to be their follower to see it!

22.  Learn to use hashtags so twitterers can follow specific conversations about the convention or topic. ◦ #sxsw ◦ #nsbeconvention  Set one for your convention.  Encourage and publicize its use. Ask your followers to help spread it to their followers.

23.  Try using a twitter chat room to segregate the tweets during a live meeting. ◦ Tweetchat.com  Some put the chat up on a screen live behind the speaker or within speaker’s view  Others have a moderator who monitors the chat and feeds questions or comments to the speaker. Much more controlled.

24.  Some planners are setting up a Twitter account specifically for the convention. ◦ @nsbeconvention ◦ @OAR_Convention  “OAR's Annual Convention & Expo to keep attendees informed of schedule changes, news, and notification of social events.” ◦ @sxsw  Official user of the SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Conferences and Festivals  Several other twitter accounts for SXSW parties, etc.

25.  backupmytweets.com

26.  YouTube – upload some videos and display them on your website and/or Facebook page.  Flickr – Create a photo gallery of pictures from the various events you conduct.  Blogs – Create one at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and put a link to it on your website.

27.  Blogs: wordpress.com  Blog search engine: technorati.com  Bookmarks: delicious.com, digg.com  Photo albums: flickr.com, photobucket.com  Social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter  Create your own social network: Ning  Create a social website: webs.com

28.  Wikis: wikispaces.com, pbworks  Videos: YouTube, Podbean.com, fliqz.com

29.  User name checks: namechk.com  Email newsletters: constantcontact.com  Surveys: surveymonkey.com  Exchange huge files: http://drop.iohttp://drop.io  Webinars: gotowebinar.com  URL shorteners: tinyURL.com  Twitter management tool: tweetdeck.com  Post to several sites at once: ping.fm  Share powerpoints: slideshare.net

30.  Online file conversion: zamzar.com  E-learning: digitalchalk.com  Skype: phone calls via the internet  Tubemogul.com: track your video stats