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.

 

Planners prefer face-to-face events

J Spargo recently completed a pre-show survey of the members of  Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) that showed that the majority of their meeting planners felt that virtual meetings would never replace face-to-face meetings.

Here are the key elements of the physical experience they reported technology cannot replace:

1. Socializing and networking spontaneously
2. Helping attendees best put names with faces
3. Allowing more free and open dialogue between attendees and vendors/presenters
4. Training effectively via live and personal interaction
5. Paying greater attention to others when face-to-face
6. Engaging in real-time conversation that is not interrupted by technical glitches

What virtual events ARE good at is to cost-effectively extend an event’s reach to a much larger audience.

 

Improving event flow

Run across ethnoMetrics yet?  They put 45 video cameras with 360-degree panning in the ceiling of a convention center and watch what really happens at an event.  A lot of the value comes in analyzing the behavior of attendees at individual booths…information that, if acted on, could really improve an exhibitor’s results from an event.

The data is also useful to the show producer in looking at overall event flow.  A case study in the May 2009 issue of Expo discusses what RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) does with the data it receives from using ethnoMetrics over multiple years.

• Instead of eliminating the poster area, they realized its importance, but poor layout.  It has now been redesigned in a hub-and-spoke plan with sessions organized by topic.
• Video analysis showed large numbers of people leaving at lunchtime, due to long lines at the center restaurants. The new RSNA Bistro resulted in a 30% reduction in cab activity from 11 – 2, and a 20% increase in lunches served at the center.

Once they leave, you don’t know if they come back.

• Cab loading was redesigned, with two lines working simultaneously, to cut wait times in half.
• Registration was also streamlined… in layout, to speed registration for exhibitors, whose self-serve area was roadblocked, in staffing (reducing after peak days), and in repurposing much of the area by the third day.

These are all great ideas any event can learn from.  And while ethnoMetrics can give great data, it isn’t cheap.  But if you know what to look for  many flow issues can be seen at eye-level if you take the time to look.

 

Conference scheduling for peak awareness

One thing I love about my line of work (the event industry) is the variety of challenges we face in any given day.

So I had to pass on this tidbit from the May issue of Convene (PCMA’s magazine).  An article with Carolyn Schur, specialist in circadian-rhythm disorders and author of Birds of a Different Feather–Early Birds and Night Owls Talk About Their Characteristic Behaviors.

Do you use roughly the same conference schedule every year, regardless of whether your national event is in Hawaii or New York City?  An 8 a.m. keynote in New York is pretty painful to a Californian, for whom it is only 5:00 in the morning.  Likewise, the Saturday evening pre-event party in Hawaii is going to be a wash-out for those on ET.

Its hard to work around, but worth thinking about.  Here are her tips:

A Sleep Expert’s Top Tips for Meeting Success

1. Schedule the most critical components of the meeting between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
2. Keep lunch light and based on protein, fruits, and vegetables.
3. Plan tours and activities after 2 p.m. or in the evening.
4. Schedule networking events in the morning or evening. This allows attendees to decide if they wish to attend, without feeling that they are missing key content if they do not.
5. Repeat sessions so that attendees can choose the time that allows for greatest alertness.
6. Particularly when you are organizing a national meeting on the East Coast, plan the first full day to start with breakfast between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. and the opening keynote at 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m. This is when most attendees will be comfortable and get the most out of their experience. Alternatively, consider the impact of that late Saturday-night banquet and dance on early birds when holding a national meeting on the West Coast.
7. Closing keynotes between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. will greatly tax early birds’ attentiveness and patience, particularly if the speaker addresses difficult issues.

 

Put herd mentality to work for you

People care what others like them are doing.  Sometimes it is to get a sense of belonging.  Sometimes we compare ourselves to others to compete.  Sometimes it saves us time to know what others have tried or recommend.

In any case, this fact is really helpful to marketers.  Lots of exhibitors base a decision to enter your event based on whether their competitors are there…either consciously or unconsciously.  Your attendees do too, which is why many events let you see if not names, titles and company names of other registrants on their website or emails.

Look below for a great example of using information to change behavior as studied in the utility field.

Studies in Norway and Finland found that when customers received neighborhood comparisons, together with frequent electric bills and meter readings, they reduced their energy use by 5%-10%.

–Home Energy Magazine Online, May/June 1997

What if you received 10% more registrants because you announced who else was coming?  Or used audience segmentation to tell your CIOs what classes other CIOs signed up for, and to tell your purchasing department managers what other purchasing department managers did?

Having trouble getting people to travel?  Tell the prospects in California how many other Californians are planning to attend.