Social Networking

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Social Networking

One of the best parts of attending a conference can be meeting other people, collaborating with colleagues and learning from others. During the conference, planners are always trying to facilitate these meetings – meet and greet receptions, cocktail hours and round table discussions are just a few ways that we try to get attendees to connect with one another. But what about after the conference, or even before? There are some easy ways that you can connect attendees to one another before the conference and long after they have left.

It’s All About Information
If you don’t know anything about your attendees, it will be nearly impossible to connect them with others that have the same interests. So begin to gather information about them as early as possible. If your attendees pre-register for sessions, you will have a wealth of information about their interests. If this is not something that you do, simply adding a few questions to the registration form such as “Which areas of this conference are you most interested in?” will be enough to begin to connect people.

Software Packages
The most powerful social networking tools are relationship-building software packages that utilize a secure environment to help attendees, exhibitors and speakers connect. After registering, each individual has the opportunity to fill out a profile that details their goals for the conference and their interests – they can reveal as much or as little information about themselves as they want. The system then sends notices to attendees of others that have similar interests and goals or an attendee and search for people to connect with.

Other Options
Not ready to take the jump into the relationship-building software? There are still ways that you can connect attendees using the basic information that you collected during the registration process. This can easily be accomplished by setting up an online forum and posting different session or speaker topics. You can then send personalized e-mail to attendees with links to the topics they showed interest in.

Not sure how to set up an online forum? Two easy ways to do this are by either a conference blog or wiki. As discussed in our June newsletter article, Blogs!?! What’s all the excitement about?, blogs are the next generation of online discussion forums. A conference blog offers a central location for interested parties to post messages that become on-going, online conversations on many different topics. Individual discussion threads can be categorized by topic and date. Blog topics can parallel conference development activities such as venue selection, conference schedule, general session speakers as well as breakout session topics.

A wiki is a type of website that allows its users to easily add, remove and edit content. A single topic, such as a session topic or a broader issue can be posted on a page and users can add their own thoughts, information and research. To view an example of a wiki, visit the world’s largest wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org

The Goal
Keep in mind that the goal behind social networking is to improve and extend participant’s conference experience. Conferences both big and small and of all types can benefit from social networking.

Need help planning your conference? Contact Designing Events at info@designingevents.com or 866-867-1933.

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