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Boom Creative Lab is attending Social Media Week (SMWNYC) in New York, one of the biggest social events taking place in multiple cities around the world during the end of February. There is a lot going on during this week. At Boom, we making sure to get the most out of it before, during and after it takes place. Here’s how:

1) Engage in advance

There is nothing better than engaging with attendees already prior to the event. Find out if there is an attendee list and regularly search the event hashtag on Twitter. There might also be a LinkedIn group, depending on how big the event is. 

2) Set up Twitter Lists 

Twitter Lists are a great tool. You can create a private one just for you or make it publicly accessible so that users can subscribe to it. For SMWNYC we created one that is called "Interesting people/businesses to connect with during SMWNYC". The nice side effect of it is that each added handle gets a notification about it.

3) Tweet & Engage during the event

Live Tweeting from the event only makes sense if there is an official hashtag. If not, you will not reach the people attending the event and will probably end up losing followers because of the unrelated content you are sharing. If there is an official hashtag, use it and make sure to stand out with the content you are sharing. Take videos and pictures, add your own thoughts to the mix and interpret instead of repeating. Here is one of the best performing tweets Boom Creative Lab sent out during a session:

Besides sharing your own content, reach out and start conversations with attendees during the event. Here is an example of Lisa reaching out and connecting two days before SMWNYC started.

Don't forget to retweet and mention others. If you want your content to be shared, make sure to value others as well.

4) Meet up in person

Now is the chance to meet, talk and get to know each other in real life. Start the conversation online and continue it offline. After all, drinking a coffee together is better than tweeting, right?

5) Check in afterwards

This rule works best for us. It's almost impossible to connect with all the people and businesses you want to during the event. After the hectic and stressful event is over, reach out and say hello, check in with people you met and continue the conversation. If you don't know the person yet, the event is a great source to refer to. The ideal platform for this is mostly LinkedIn or directly via E-Mail.

 

Apply these 5 rules and you will get the most out of your next event.