Are You Creating Buzz?
I recently returned from Miami where an entire event that our team planned and produced which went extremely well. All of the attendees were very pleased at the end of the conference and when I got back to Chicago, I received positive feedback from our clients which is always great to hear and very appreciated.
Reading over my e-mail, I noticed a word. One noted “My thanks for all the hard work your team put into the meeting, great buzz afterwards.” Another said “……aaaand thank you. Just a positive buzz — and all are talking about the meeting next year.”
Buzz. Why, suddenly, is the word buzz popping up all over the place?
This is a great example of the Baeder-Meinhoff Phenomenon, where you hear or see something new and then suddenly start seeing it or hearing about it everywhere you turn.
Buzz – both of the good and bad variety — can travel fast. Hours after Angelina Jolie’s awkward poses at the Academy Awards, you could follow @AngiesRightLeg on Twitter. There are so many outlets for information available, especially social media, so creating a positive buzz is crucial. Making your event enjoyable, informational, and memorable for the attendees creates that. People sharing the news at a live event with each other as well as their connected communities is better than any marketing plan you could ever devise.
We are working on an upcoming industry conference where our Twitterfall of messages that will be displayed throughout our space at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, FL will also have a Buzz Meter letting us know how many people are talking about the conference.
There are many methods available to help us track what’s being talked about out there in the blogosphere, Twitterverse, and elsewhere. Using designated keywords about your event after a hashtag is one of the best ways to gauge your buzz. All tweets that include your hashtagged phrase will be searchable and measurable. And you can keep track of who checks in to your event on Foursquare. The more people, the more buzz!
Think about ways to create that Buzz during and long after the event is over.
