1105 Government Information Group
Using Social Media to Drive Tradeshow Traffic
1105 Government Information Group is the leading provider of integrated information and media for the government information technology (IT) market. Flagship events include the Federal 100, FOSE, GCN Awards, Government Leadership Summit, GovSec, U.S. Law, Washington Technology Top 100, and a series of conferences focused on collaboration, networking and education. FOSE is the largest trade show for government technology professionals and was co-located this year with GovSec, U.S. Law.
Campaign – Tuvel Communications developed a successful social media campaign to promote and increase participation in these events. The events took place on March 10–12, 2009, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
“Because of the social media programs that Tuvel Communications implemented for FOSE, GovSec and U.S. Law, we were able to report an increased level of participation and attendance for our annual trade shows,” said Carmel McDonagh, vice president, 1105 Media Inc. “Through the continued use of social media, we will maintain and grow our show audiences beyond the physical events. We aspire to keep our audiences informed and aware of ongoing activities on a year-round basis, to include soliciting feedback as we develop content for the coming events. As the government moves toward transparency and openness initiatives, we are mirroring this strategy in the way we communicate with our attendee community, and we have now created the right framework to achieve this goal.”
— Carmel McDonagh: vice president, 1105 Media Inc.
Goals – 1105 Government Information Group wanted to increase traffic, buzz and excitement while producing an engaged, active audience for FOSE 2009. FOSE and GovSec, U.S. Law also aimed to strengthen relationships with the government IT community.
Strategy – On behalf of 1105 Government Information Group, Tuvel built relationships with government IT networkers by “listening” to online conversations. These conversations highlighted technology and issues that was appropriate for FOSE 2009. We offered relevant content on different government IT sectors such as healthcare, security and green computing through social media channels.
Through social media outreach, we were able to develop relationships with a core group of passionate supporters who are already helping to market and create FOSE 2010. Additionally, Tuvel took advantage of FOSE’s built-in audience, giving those already registered a place to go in the social networking world—in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn— to talk about FOSE, and of FOSE’s known brand and image, to identify and build a list of supporters.
For GovSec and U.S. Law, Tuvel built a social media program that reached potential attendees directly on their turf, when they were most open to hearing our message. Tuvel developed a database of contacts for GovSec and U.S. Law, and then executed a social media outreach campaign that disseminated our message to bloggers and others in the contact database.
Tuvel’s social media program offered 1105 Government Information Group a way to get involved in the Web 2.0 world easily and embrace newer technologies. We used the current, strong Government 2.0 transparency movement to spread the word and create awareness.
Social media efforts also served a customer service function, as prospects and attendees used these communities to resolve registration issues.
The campaign also used social networking communities to deliver immediate information during the event, such as unannounced speakers and scheduling changes, which enabled participants to make the most of their presence at the event.
Tactics – For 1105 Government Information Group, Tuvel built relationships through best e-mail marketing practices with deep research and highly customized one-to-one communications. We identified passionate supporters and those interested in government security and IT topics. Other tactics included conducting outreach for FOSE 2009 that located and disseminated the message to similar social networking groups; integrating the social media program into website, traditional PR and onsite collateral efforts; leveraging company e-mail marketing efforts to contact existing and past attendees, and sending broadcast messages pointing recipients to online communities where they could obtain up-to-date information.
Tuvel also built excitement through onsite efforts such as live tweeting and offered Twitter exclusives on surprise announcements and headline speakers. We connected with bloggers, web forums and e-mail listowners, individuals, and other online publishers, to spread the word about GovSec, U.S. Law throughout the homeland security and local law enforcement communities; built online communities and drove resulting traffic back to event registration pages; integrated and tied together all social networking communities; and complemented the campaign with grassroots communities such as GovLoop and the Federal Contractors Network, which served to engage more prospects and drive additional registration page traffic. Finally, we added bloggers to press credentials program to increase exhibition coverage.
Results – The Tuvel campaign for 1105 Government Information’s 2009 events was a great success! Attendance at FOSE and GovSec, U.S. Law Conferences and Exhibitions increased in 2009—FOSE had a verified increase of 13% and GovSec, U.S. Law verified at a 28% increase. The event ranked at #8 on Twitter trending topics. 1105 Government Information Group engaged more than 1,000 supporters via social networking initiatives—before, during and after the conferences. Our efforts generated solid marketing research that will be used for FOSE 2010.
Achieving Similar Success
For information on how you can put a Tuvel Communications program to work for your company, organization, product, service or event, just contact us.