ROAR events group, Steve McGill is a contributing blogger for the Tradeshow News Network.  Below is his most recent post on Virtual Events.

Twitter is like a good salesperson’s dream. By good, I mean a salesperson who listens. (For that matter – it also is a customer’s dream – having a digital ‘governor’ who restricts chatter to 140 characters …) The best sales scenario in the world, hence the best marketing scenario in the world, is one where your audience shares their needs and feelings. When we listen – we make no assumptions about our audience, we learn directly from them what is important.

How then can Twitter become a useful listening tool in building an audience for your virtual event?  For example – a potential path might look like this:

·         What key event objectives are most important to your target audience? What do they want to accomplish?

·         From your findings, how will you illustrate you listen well – and deliver on their event objectives?

·         What process and specific team member duties will you construct to insure you are delivering on their needs up to and through the virtual event?

·         In what quantifiable ways will you measure success – based on attendee objectives?

Assign your ‘Twitter Community Event Manager’

You need someone with real organizational knowledge who you trust to speak for the whole, in a consistent and coherent voice.

Identify an event theme

Your list of attendee needs is valuable in shaping your Twitter communications. Let’s say for example you are marketing a technology conference, and the attendees are going to your event to learn how to accelerate their data transfer. An event theme that centers on the virtues of acceleration can help you both brand your virtual event, while asking your target audience to define what acceleration means to them.

Establish a Twitter hash tag for your event

An excellent way to brand your event is to establish a Twitter hash tag. A hash tag is a key word or abbreviation preceded by the hash or number symbol such as #EC10. Hash tags encourage conference participants to use them in their tweets and are a great tool in aggregating conversation and community around the event. If, for example, you want to brand your event theme around ‘acceleration’ – a potential hash tag would be #acceleration. Once you have indentified some them words – you can go to www.twubs.com to learn what hash tags are available.

Identify and reward your ‘event theme champions’

Your ‘Twitter Community Event Manager’ should not be the only leader of the community. Reach out to your most engaged audience members. ‘Crown’ them as brand ambassadors by inviting them contribute digital content/insight and ask them ‘offline’ how you can improve. Not only will you gain firsthand, unfiltered information, but you will also activate a network of ambassadors to give you the best thing you could ask for: positive word-of-mouth.