National Association of Broadcasters

Using Social Media to Build Business Relationships and Drive Tradeshow Traffic

The NAB Show is an annual meet-up where 100,000+ citizens and a market of 1,600 companies, thousands of new product introductions and global partnerships have the opportunity to connect. It is a living, breathing city, unlike any other in the world, where imagination meets technology and content comes to life. The yearly conference provides a wealth of valuable training sessions; exciting exhibits from leading solutions providers; and top industry idols from film, television, radio, and technology.

“This is an exciting online engagement project and a great opportunity for the NAB Show to expand our reach to younger participants and early adopters in the broader-castings industry by using these new media channels. We look forward to seeing new faces at our event as a result of this campaign. As the world’s largest event for leading media, entertainment and communications professionals, we take pride in staying at the cutting edge of media trends on behalf of the content community, and the Tuvel Communications program helps us do just that.”

— Michelle Kelly: National Association of Broadcasters senior vice president, Event Marketing

Goals

The 2009 NAB Show aimed to strengthen relationships with the post-production and gaming communities. NAB wanted to increase traffic to and excitement about the 2009 NAB Show while growing the number of attendees for the event.

Strategy

We had a two-stage approach that first located the right people— individuals and groups with a passion for post-production and gaming—and then drove them to sign-up for 2009 NAB Show and/or join an online community related to the show.

Tuvel Communications undertook a cutting-edge, innovative social-media campaign before and during the 2009 NAB Show to bring new participants to the event and enhance their level of participation during it as well. We employed a communications strategy that listened to the conversation and then delivered a strong promotional message and offerings of value to people engaged in these conversations to begin the relationship-building experience.

Creating communities for the 2009 NAB Show gave fans, friends and followers a “home” and a place to engage, ask questions and talk back. We were able to reach people, on their turf, when and where they were most interested in hearing about the NAB Show. By listening, we were also able to refine messaging. For instance, the conversation often focused on travel budgets and tough economic times, so we responded by developing an offer used as a “stimulus” for going to the event. We were also able to integrate social media event modules into our communications program, which allowed us to communicate directly with attendees.

Tactics

Our proactive research found prospects whom we felt would find value in our message. We reached out with a value-based message that invited people to participate in a social networking community or attend the NAB Show. Tuvel’s upfront, intensive research located appropriate prospects who would be interested in hearing the message about, and participating in, the event.

Using an NAB Show profile with a real, human voice behind it worked from both a branding and marketing perspective. Social networking communities also worked well as a customer-service vehicle. We were able to crowdsource answers throughout social networking communities for restaurant and travel recommendations. The NAB Show created quite a bit of community-generated content—information that will be used to promote future events. Post-event social media activity is allowing the NAB, and Tuvel on its behalf, to cultivate year-round relationships that can be leveraged for next year’s show.

Time spent on building virtual relationships paid off at the NAB Show as Twitter created tremendous buzz and excitement at the 2009 event. Using social media like Twitter at the show itself offered the perception that the NAB Show was “everywhere,” and allowed us to meet with and solicit feedback from attendees. The NAB social media program maintained an appropriate balance of pre-broadcast and live conversation, which enhanced customer satisfaction with the experience of participating in this program. We were able to enhance relationships through virtual and show events such as live tweeting panels.

These social media efforts also allowed those not present to participate in the event and gain a sense of “being there,” creating a comfortable community atmosphere that delivered valuable information to those not able to attend in person. Given its success and the lessons learned from this year’s effort, a continued presence in current and to-be-developed social media channels can only enhance show participation and customer satisfaction.

We created more than one Facebook page on behalf of the 2009 NAB Show, which let us drive traffic through this social network and between several social media accounts. Promotional programs offered an upgrade for those who helped spread the word, allowing us to offer real, relevant value to prospects while building relationships. We were able to use Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to generate the proper mix of broadcasted and community-generated content. We established click-tracking for social media properties, which let us gauge immediate reaction and alter marketing messages accordingly.

Using Twitter as an onsite communications vehicle allowed us to get the word out, in real time, about scheduling and speaker changes. Live Tweetups created buzz and excitement on the show floor and allowed us to meet with and solicit feedback from attendees.

Establishing and promoting hash tags—labels used in tweets that are similar to tags used in discussion lists—early on often allowed us to grow our list of followers, build relationships and generate content. Tracking various conversations through Tweetdeck, Splitweet and additional tools allowed us to “see” much of the NAB Show chatter. By keeping up with platform changes, we were able to update profiles and take advantage of new tools being offered by Facebook and LinkedIn.

Results

Tuvel finds prospects and then delivers them to clients. The NAB Show makes it clear that this approach is effective.

The return on investment for the Tuvel Communications social-media campaign to drive more attendees to 2009 NAB Show was 100 percent—the campaign drove more participants to the event than any other media partner. The social media efforts generated more excitement and traffic than traditional advertising and direct marketing channels combined. E-mail outreach efforts generated a 15-percent response rate—an unusually high response to such campaigns. The social media program built relationships with 5,000 people—relationships that will be invaluable in future marketing efforts. Google Analytics tracked social networking profiles in the Top 15 referring websites.

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