How to Make ALL the Right Connections at a Conference
Here are some tips on how to make all the right connections at a conference you may be attending in the near or distant future. Whether you are a chef, an Internet marketing sensation, a general contractor, or any other business owner, there are usually conferences that you attend to increase your company’s bottom line, learn something new to improve your marketing or customer relations skills, forge new relationships with like-minded individuals, or a multitude of other reasons . If you plan ahead, you can make attending a conference a great opportunity to network with all the right people and achieve all your goals to a greater extent.
3-6 Months in Advance of the Conference
Once you have chosen the best conference for Making ALL the Right Connections to increase profits for your business and to meet your customers’ needs, start doing your research at least 3-6 months in advance of the conference. Here are some areas you can research to make the most of your time while at the conference.
- The Event: Find out if there is a conference hashtag (#) on Twitter and other social media platforms. The event managers are usually savvy enough to know this is now important for current and potential attendees to spread the word for them. It was easy to find the hashtag for this particular event by going to the Twitter account of the founder. Make sure you share posts of the founder(s) of the event if you can find out who it is and use the event’s hashtag each time. Tagging the founder(s) is a nice touch if you are being respectful and not spamming them with non-valuable content or shares.
- The Speakers: If you would like to connect with the speakers at your event because you feel they may just be the right connections for you to foster a relationship with, here are some great tips to get their attention:
- Find out where they “hang out” online. Follow their twitter feeds, Facebook page posts, LinkedIN profiles, professional blogs, etc. Once you find out where they are and follow them, find out what they are passionate about – do they have a book you can help promote? A membership blog they are building? A cause they are discussing? The best thing you can do (when you find out what this key passion of theirs is) is to retweet, share, comment on, and repost as many of their posts as possible. Remember, “sharing is caring” should be your new mantra. Make sure when you comment on their blog or social media posts, don’t be generic. Add value to their content by providing a valuable tip, a thought-provoking question, or even a valuable link that may add to the conversation. Just writing “great post” wreaks of spam! Here is an example of an interaction I had when reaching out to the founder of one of the biggest Social Media Marketing events in the world (my twitter handle used to be kissyourweb). Since I knew Mike Stelzner makes the bulk of his income on this event and gives tremendous value through his Social Media Examiner blog, I knew he was/is very passionate about this event. Because of that, I wanted to share his passion with my Twitter followers. Notice how quickly Mike replied by looking at the date and time at the bottom of the tweets:
The trick I employed with this tweet was to not only include the @smexaminer twitter handle (as I am aware this is managed by one of Mike’s social media managers named Kim), but to also include Mike’s own Twitter handle, @Mike_Stelzner. Of course, it may not be Mike but, through a bit of research, I believe it is or that he is informed of who interacts with his twitter feed. I also included the hashtag (#) for the event (#smmw15), which was easy to find, for the purpose of being included in any discussions about the event. You will also note that I proceeded to include 1-2 important Internet Marketers that I knew would be helpful in lending credibility to my connections in the industry. Finally, I included a call to action in that my goal was to meet Mike at the event and shake his hand. I have since created a call-to-action hashtag to include in my tweets about the event: #ShakeMyHand. More to come about this hashtag below. - Create a Twitter List of the Speakers: Once I found out all the speakers who would be at the event, I followed each and created a speaker’s list to share with my followers and anyone using the event’s hashtag: Social Media Marketing World 2015 Speaker’s List. Once you’ve made the list, start sharing it online. Create a blog post about it, post it on Twitter and include the twitter handles of the founder(s) or some of the speakers of the events (see illustration to follow), share it on Facebook, etc.
If you would like to learn how to create a Twitter list of speakers, click on the video below:
- Repost/Share on Instagram: There are apps on Instagram that allow you to repost others’ posts. It is a big “pat on the back” to the original person when you repost their posts. They will get notified of this repost if you tag them.
- Find out where they “hang out” online. Follow their twitter feeds, Facebook page posts, LinkedIN profiles, professional blogs, etc. Once you find out where they are and follow them, find out what they are passionate about – do they have a book you can help promote? A membership blog they are building? A cause they are discussing? The best thing you can do (when you find out what this key passion of theirs is) is to retweet, share, comment on, and repost as many of their posts as possible. Remember, “sharing is caring” should be your new mantra. Make sure when you comment on their blog or social media posts, don’t be generic. Add value to their content by providing a valuable tip, a thought-provoking question, or even a valuable link that may add to the conversation. Just writing “great post” wreaks of spam! Here is an example of an interaction I had when reaching out to the founder of one of the biggest Social Media Marketing events in the world (my twitter handle used to be kissyourweb). Since I knew Mike Stelzner makes the bulk of his income on this event and gives tremendous value through his Social Media Examiner blog, I knew he was/is very passionate about this event. Because of that, I wanted to share his passion with my Twitter followers. Notice how quickly Mike replied by looking at the date and time at the bottom of the tweets:
- Other Conference Attendees: For this event, many attendees have been adding me to their #smmw15 list and I have begun to do the same. This is a great way to find out more information about the event and about the attendees. You never know what networking opportunities may arise from paying attention to who is going to the event, running it, and speaking at it.
- Order T-Shirts and Business Cards: A nice touch is to order special t-shirts for the event if it’s within your budget. Also make sure you are up to date on your business cards. For me, I wanted to make sure I made a statement with the #ShakeMyHand hashtag so that I could meet some awesome speakers and networkers at the event. This is the t-shirt I ordered from a company where I could design the shirts and that was reasonable in cost and delivery:
