In the first of a two-part post Ben Giddings, our Europe Digital Hub Manager, looks at how digital can be used to extend the reach and impact of an event.
I was recently in Istanbul to take part in a social media seminar with the Consulate General and staff from the Embassy in Ankara.
We covered a broad range of areas from commercial diplomacy to crisis management, and I was fortunate enough to attend a discussion hosted by Consul General and prolific digital diplomat Leigh Turner where we met Turkish bloggers who gave some great insights on using digital in a variety of sectors.
But for me the best part of the workshop was our final session when we discussed how to actually deploy all the talking and thinking that we had done over the two days. In short, how to put the theory into practise.
So we decided to take a typical event that the Embassy might host – in this case one to promote the “Entrepreneurs are GREAT” theme – and look at all the ways that digital tools could be used to lift the event to the next level.
Here’s my summary of what we came up with:
Objective
Before you lay a finger on your mouse, you need to agree an objective – why are we going to go to all the effort of planning and running an event? Ideally it should be measurable. We all know that measuring can be difficult in the world of diplomacy, but you should at least have a clear focus on what you are trying to achieve and how you’ll know that you’ve achieved it.
For this example our objective will be to understand issues affecting British businesses trying to enter the Turkish market, and begin to address some of those issues.
Audience
Now you have to be absolutely clear on who your target audience is. This impacts everything from the agenda to the promotion and the nature of your comms work, so make sure you are clear from the outset.
In this case it is likely to be British companies who want to do business in Turkey and local business owners looking to partner with British companies.
Preparation
Next we need to define our content. But instead of rolling out the standard set of messages, why not do something different? Why not ask your target audience what they would want from an event like this? Here are some ways you can do that:
- LinkedIn – use your personal profiles on LinkedIn to join and engage with Groups on the platform where business leaders are already meeting. In these groups you can openly say that the Embassy is thinking of hosting an event for entrepreneurs and you want their thoughts on what issues to cover. You can also target British business owners and Turkish ones and find out exactly what the issues are for both.
- Twitter – you could run a Twitter Q&A with the HMA or Head of UKTI inviting business leaders to post questions about doing business in Turkey and in the UK. From this you can gather intelligence about the issues facing businesses in both countries.
- Blog – use your HMA’s blog to post an article about doing business in Turkey and ask people to leave their thoughts in the comments. It could raise some interesting questions
With these 3 activities you can start to tailor an agenda that would suit your target audience. You will also get a sense of how welcome such a seminar might be and might also start to identify people who could participate in the event – either as attendees or as speakers.
Organisation
So you know your objective, you know your audience and you now have a clear idea of what that audience wants to hear from you at your event. Next step is to start organising things.
And one big recommendation here is to use a tool like Eventbrite. This is a free online tool that enables you to create an event page where people can sign-up and in doing so give you information about themselves – email address, size of company etc etc.
It’s not the only tool out there, but it’s the best one we have found to date and is being increasingly used by other Government departments including the Government Communications Network (GCN).
Promotion
This is the most familiar part for many of us, but there are still new ways to look at it. One thing I would stress is the importance of using the right channels, in the right way. Don’t simply write a news item for the web and then link to it from Twitter and Facebook. Start by thinking about where your target audience are likely to be.
You’ve already spoken to them on LinkedIn, so go back into those groups and follow up by telling people you’re running the event and that the agenda is based on their input. That will make them receptive to spreading the word as well as attending.
Likewise use Twitter and your blog. If you like, you can use Twitter mentions, DMs or replies to directly target people who asked questions in your Q&A. Maybe ask your speakers to post guest blogs in the run up to the event so that you can whet people’s appetites.
And remember, you shouldn’t expect your target audience to come to you – you have to go out and find them. Place content in front of your audience on the sites they are likely to visit. Ask trade websites to republish your blogs, ask your LinkedIn contacts to share with their networks.
If you have business people on Facebook, then by all means target them. But remember that Facebook favours visual and audio material. So how about a short video talking about the Turkish market with an advert for your event at the end?
To be continued
That’s it for now. Next time, we’ll look at how to use digital when it comes to delivering your event and beyond.