Twitter users trend older than you think

The New York Times has an article all marketers need to read:  “Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity?  Not Teens”.

Did you think that Twitter was primarily a tool for young people to stay in touch?

Actually, only 11% of the Twitter user base is 11 – 17.  Young people don’t need it.  They got hooked on MySpace and FaceBook before Twitter was invented and see no use for it.  They want to stay in touch with friends, not the masses of anonymity in the Twitterverse.

There are two interesting ideas in this.  The first is that it turns the accepted notion that technology trends always start in the young on its head.

The notion that children are essential to a new technology’s success has proved to be largely a myth.

Second, that we marketers need to be more analytical in our thinking about new media.  How many event producers are missing out on key technology trends because they think they are only for the young, and aren’t being used by their demographic?  The worst error in marketing is to project from ourselves.

Though Twitter’s founders originally conceived of the site as a way to stay in touch with acquaintances, it turns out that it is better for broadcasting ideas or questions and answers to the outside world or for marketing a product. It is also useful for marketing the person doing the tweeting, a need few teenagers are attuned to. “Many people use it for professional purposes — keeping connected with industry contacts and following news,” said Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive. “Because it’s a one-to-many network and most of the content is public, it works for this better than a social network that’s optimized for friend communication.”

Forget what you thought about Twitter.  The fact is that its main purpose is to connect like-minded groups of people to discuss areas they have in common.  Hm.  Sounds a lot like an event.  But year-long.

 

MPI experiments with a virtual event

Congratulations to Meeting Professionals International for the leadership shown in extending their July World Education Congress (WEC) with a virtual event. Not only did it allow MPI to distribute access to some content and exhibitors to those who did not attend, or continued access to those who did, but, as an event organization, it provided information and an example to their membership.

The decisions they made in how they did this exemplify the issues we all face in facing this new opportunity. What to charge for? How much to charge? Will it cannibalize existing attendance? What to put online and what not to?

Similar questions marketers face with every new technology.

There are no perfect answers, and we should not wait for them. We’ll only figure out best practice by diving in,  making the best judgments we can, and comparing notes.

Some of MPI’s decisions:

• The full $625 access pass for the physical event includes the virtual event. (Good call.)
• The Virtual Access Pass was $299. (About half price.  Logical.)
• The General Assembly alone was $19. (Hm.  I’d be inclined to make this one free.)
• The virtual event is open for six months.  (I bet this is partly to allow a down time between ‘events’ to build interest for the following year.

I don’t have their attendance figures.  Generally the combo physical and online events this year have seen similar attendance figures to what they expected without a virtual event (down slightly from 2008), but a much higher total combined audience.

Did it cannibalize attendance?  No way to prove it one way or the other, but it certainly did not create a major dip in physical attendance that hurt the event.

Every survey says that people prefer the physical event: and some simply can’t make it whether you offer the alternative or not.

 

Interactive meeting tool

There is a real trend toward adding interactivity to conferences…from encouraging Q&A to whiteboarding, breaking out into table-sized discussion groups, or giving the attendees a specific problem to solve.

But for some meetings, the interactivity is not simply a learning tool. Or an opportunity to contribute to the industry.

Sometimes it is the whole point of a meeting.

Like when a company is rolling out a new strategy or vision, and needs immediate employee feedback–both to improve the vision and to ensure full buy-in.

The June issue of Convene includes the article Faster Feedback, highlighting the abilities CoVision’s meeting software.  The idea is that after the presentation, each table group discusses the ideas presented, while a table moderator captures the key points on a networked PC.  A “theme team” 3-4 people who are skilled at seeing trends in responses, synthesize the collected ideas into a usable summary that quickly goes back to the presenter.  After a break the full group is already discussing how to modify or act on the original ideas.

Interesting that CoVision takes the automation only as far as it logically goes, but no farther.  Some day you can imagine pattern-recognition software replacing the 3-4 people in the theme team.  But I  would worry about whether that was an advantage.

It can be daunting to manage the process of really getting feedback from a large group.  In this case, Q&A would not get you there…and how many companies have decided that a lack of Q&A when they rolled out a new strategy meant that everyone was on board…to disastrous results.

This reminds us…there is no excuse not to get the group feedback.  There are tools to help.

 

What attendees want

HCEA (Healthcare Convention and Exhibitors Association) presented the findings of their 2009 study of what medical event attendees want from events at the Annual Meeting in June.  “How Physicians Would Design the Exhibit Hall of the Future.”

We get used to repeating what we did last year, but step back and re-think your program based on what the healthcare providerssay they want from your event.  (Most of these comments apply to any industry.)  Make the attendees happy and the exhibitors will keep coming back.

• Events serve a very important function
  • Opportunity to see everything related to their speciality under one roof
  • Hospitals and small practices need events more than ever, as they have less exposure to pharmaceutical reps in their normal practice than previously
• Organize the event by therapeutic area
  • Mixing all exhibitors up is confusing and difficult to navigate
• Navigation: Large signage, information desks, representatives
• Schedule: Extend hours and start early.  Drs are used to it!
• Multiple lounges and refreshment areas.  Wifi
• Exhibitors:
  • Put product experts in the booth: Clinical peers, not just sales reps
  • Educational approach
  • Interactive demos or virtual simulations
• See exhibit hall as
  • Providing a break from the dark lecture halls
  • Social time–interacting with peers while interacting with exhibitors
• Schedule meet the expert round tables

 

Memorable, engaging content

I attended AIHce last week in Toronto (American Industrial Hygiene Association), and was very impressed with their content.

Why?  In addition to the expected set of technical sessions and panels that are the core of an industry event, they experimented with Theming and Interactivity.

The keynote featured Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation.  (While I find speakers about selling and motivating off-putting, listening to a true salesman speak about his passion is totally motivating.)  You remember, the first X Prize, won by Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites in 2004, was a $10 million competition to build a privately funded craft that reaches a sub-orbit of 100 km twice in two weeks.  Maybe you didn’t know that the Foundation continues to fund X Prizes to solve many challenges in multiple fields, including healthcare, space, automotive, green…

Totally inspired by Dr. Diamandis’s speach, attendees were then challenged to similarly attack specific issues in their own industry, in sessions held later that day and the next.  In the session, a well-prepared and organized moderator introduce an expert panel to speak briefly on the challenge, and presented the attendees with a clear format to follow to make real progress over the two hours of the session.  Nine table groups of about 8 people each worked on the problem as a team…then a spokeperson for each table presented to the other groups and the expert panel, with opportunity for questions and discussion.  And then the panel chose a winner, whose solution was to be presented back to the AIHA board for potential implementation.  Of course, all ideas were captured for publication and further discussion.

You have never seen a more engaged group of people, totally engrossed in the transformative event by being allowed to contribute back to their industry in a meaningful way.

The other terrifically interactive session I attended was called “Unsolved IH Mysteries Workshop”, and, due to the limited size of each session, had to be held at least twice.  Here is their description:

Expanded and back by popular demand! This interactive program will prompt you to put on your thinking cap. Actual case studies involving IH field work will be presented. You will have all the data. You will know all the players. You will understand all the circumstances. But, you will not know the outcome. Working with groups of colleagues, you will discuss cases and potential remedies and each group will present its results. In the end, the facilitator will explain what actually occurred.

I am an event chick without any understanding of the complexities of Industrial Hygiene, but was mesmerized.  Who doesn’t want to play forensic detective? And the real attendees were engrossed.  By the end of the first case study absolutely every person in the room was contributing questions and comments.

I posted a week ago about conference sessions as hell.  These sessions were not…they were fascinating, involving and memorable.

[Kudos to AIHA Executive Director Peter O'Neil and his team.]