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Sunday, April 8, 2012

Events with a social touch

A live event has multiple perspectives and effects. 

Whatever the unpredictable circumstances that might occur, the business relationships between a brand and its stakeholders are strengthened. 


I am an event planner of a manufacturer of plastic conduit systems in Greece and that’s what my little work experience so far has proved me.  
I have witnessed deals to be certified because of an educational visit in our facilities for just a weekend. Impression is captured not only because of our modern equipped headquarters, but also of our location in one of the most beautiful and breathtaking Greek islands, famous for its hospitality.
During a recession, a brand does not coordinate events or educational seminars for 40 people, every other weekend. However, we have made a tremendous and pioneering investment; our publics need to get familiar with the new product, understand its use, and compare its unique quality.
How can I secure the valuable business relationships with our stakeholders, and furthermore my own job, now that in time of need, events organization is unfortunately the first thing to cut down?
I have been thinking that instead of facilitating all the electrician installers or the managers of electrical equipment stores, why not my CEO go to them and broadcast the new production line in progress through Livestream or Ustream and promote my brand’s on line presence as well?
The speeches of the educational seminars can be transferred with the same efficiency and appeal, and the conducted tour to the production field will make use of social media.
Livestream or Upstream is one way to follow, but how about live tweeting as well? 5.100 followers of the Twitter handle @houstonhospital watched an open hurt surgery to 57 – year – old patient. Tweets, photos and videos of the 2-hour long live tweeting event were compiled into a social story on Storify.




What’s more? Social media can be used throughout the entire process of the event, before – during or after it.  


You can use to send invitations and promote the event, register attendees, check them in upon arrival, and send them relevant tweets during or after.
So, I hope everything turns out well!


2 comments:

jonas.j said...

This is definitely an interesting idea - although obviously an actual event gives many more opportunities to create and maintain relationships, using Livestream for business presentation is a nice idea.

I would be interested in hearing how many people actually attended such a broadcast - but I guess that since this is a professional matter, the interest would be there!

Angela said...

I also think this is an interesting idea. I think our role is to make company question which output best serves the need of their objectives. If you just need to share information, providing is of interest to your public then live streaming has a reduced cost. If however you require human interaction to facilitate the explanation and people benefit from being in the facility and this promotes a culture growth around your product, then losing the educational visits may have a long term effect on profits. I think that in mid to large size organisations people often lose sight of the whole picture and just look at the easiest way of improving cost efficacy. I suppose what we must do is be more efficient at demonstrating how the areas of our work contribute to the growing success of the business. In the case of cuts these short term financial gains may have a longer term financial implication. How much will it cost them you buy back what they may be losing?