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Events matter. You’ve heard us say it a thousand times. It’s plastered all over our website, twitter page, and e-mail signatures. Yes, it’s a concise, striking, and powerful tagline (if we do say so ourselves), but it’s much more than that. The truth is, it gets to the heart of who we are and why we think our product matters: because events matter, and our product is a tool that enhances events. ZeristaPRO is a vehicle that allows you to engage in an event before the physical start date, so that when that date arrives you are set up, connected, and able to make that invaluable face-to-face time as high-impact as possible. It enables you to take those face-to-face encounters and keep the conversation going for months afterwards. In a nutshell, it’s a vehicle to help you make the most of events, and this matters only because events, themselves, matter.

Events inspire us. Educate us. Connect us.

When Lady Gaga gets involved, on the other hand, they  perplex us.

From industry trade shows to professional sports games, events bring people together and punctuate life, they’re the things worth sharing and remembering. From Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to Hurricane Katrina, from Lady Gaga being “born” out of a giant egg onstage during this year’s Grammys to your 16th birthday party, events drive our personal and cultural social conversation. Events have the power to inspire, connect, and educate. In the case of your 16th birthday party (or Lady Gaga), they might even have the power to be slightly traumatizing.

Comscore has some great market info for us.  Google’s Android platform made the big jump in market share last year coming at the expense of Blackberry.  It looks to be more of a two horse race and our guess is that both will end up winning the lion’s share of the market.  The good news for ZeristaPRO customers is that not only do we support iPhone and Android native platforms with downloadable apps, but also support every other browser capable phone on the planet.  So, whether you love downloadable apps (32.3% of you did last year) or love to use your phone’s browser (34.5% of you do), ZeristaPRO has you covered.

Smartphone Platform Market Share

Mobile Content Usage

First mover advantage is way overrated.  Trail blazing companies capture headlines, @Techcrunch articles and @Scoblizer tweets – no doubt.

How are events using social media?  What levels of adoption should events expect?  What are the common strategies and best practices?

To answer these questions, we recently conducted extensive event industry research.

We gathered data from more than 600 event professionals and hundreds of events – both large and small.  Thanks to all of those who shared their experience and insights!

Here are the top 8 key insights from the research:

1.  Social Media has gone mainstream – 80% of events utilize some form of social media.

2. Social Media is not just for tech geeks.  All types of industries and market segments – from association and medical to communications and industrial machinery events – are figuring out how to best use social media for their events.

3. Social Media Strategy is all over the map – common strategies range from Community Building to Marketing to Experimentation to No Strategy.

4. Facebook and Twitter are the leading public platforms – 54% of events utilize both Facebook and Twitter.  Despite it’s business-orientation, LinkedIn surprisingly trails  the more consumer-focused alternatives.

5. Mobile is key – Event attendees show higher mobile adoption than the general population

6.  It’s easy to get started – Most common posting frequency is 2-3 times per week or weekly for public social media.

7.  Most common content areas – Event, industry and exhibitor/sponsor news as well as registration-related posts.

8. Most significant needs – 70%+ events want better attendee/exhibitor search/browse tools; 50%+ want advance meeting scheduling tools.   If we do say so ourselves, this is where ZeristaPRO comes in.

Additional data and insights are available here:

Click here to download the detailed report on Event Social Media Adoption and Strategies.

Your thoughts?  Are you surprised by any of the findings?  Is there something that you would like to know more about?

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures, modified by Jennifer Gargotto

There are a lot of great event social media blogs on the web – with many new ones seemingly popping up every day.  Lots of really smart people are sharing their ideas and perspectives on how social media is changing the event experience and, in the process, the event industry. Here are some of the event social media blogs we find ourselves reading frequently:

Sytelabs There’s nothing not to love about Jacob Worek’s writing on event planning, services, and ideas. He handles everything from managing event stress to Charlie Sheen with humor and very relevant insight.

Midcourse Corrections – Jeff Hurt seems to pump out great stuff on the role of social media at events on an almost daily basis.

Fork in the road – Social Media and Face-to-Face Meetings – If you’re interested in in-depth explorations at the intersection of social media, virtual events, and meetings, Michelle Bruno’s posts are a great source.

Interactive Meeting Technology – Sam Smith has built up a successful following with his witty deep dives on the latest in event technology, in particular social media tools.

Chris Brogan – General social media blog but often with a focus on event social media.

McCurry’s Corner –  Mike’s posts have a personal touch as they explore the world of event social media.

The tough thing about lists is that you always have to leave somebody off or forget one of your favorites.  Do you read any of these blogs?  Which do you like?  Who did we miss?

Sam sees Zerista as a “game changer for small events.”  He goes on to say that he sees Zerista as “more than a mobile social network” but also “a mobile communication system for small groups.”

In his words:

Did you hear that Zerista launched a new mobile community for events last week? It could be a game changer for small events – giving them access to event technology that was previously too expensive.

Sam’s bottom line is that “the Zerista mobile community is more of a communication platform than a private social network. It allows you to form ‘disposable communities’ and help them communicate, collaborate and share – while they are on the go.” We look forward to seeing how our platform is being used at events and sharing new things we learn.

To read the entire article visit Interactive Meeting Tech Blog.

“The Congress for the New Urbanism is very excited to be using Zerista this year! Attendees have been impressed to find an event networking site that looks great and connects them with the colleagues they’ll see at our conference. They’re also using it to select and find sessions. It definitely surpassed our expectations.” -CNU Communications Director

We recently completed a fun project working with a leading urban design conference in Denver.  The Conference for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the nation’s leading forum dedicated to advancing urbanism and promoting alternatives to sprawl.

We were excited to work on this project – not only because we support the general new urbanist principles, but also because we live and work in the types of communities that new urbanism seeks to encourage.

As background, New Urbanism is an urban design and development movement dedicated to implementing community-oriented principles of traditional town and city planning in contrast to the prevailing system of formless sprawl. New Urbanist developments are walkable, provide a diverse range of housing options, encourage a rich mix of uses, and provide welcoming public spaces as detailed in the Charter of the New Urbanism.

The conference attracts more than 1,000 attendees from around the world who particiapte in several hundred planned activities throughout the week.

Some of the key challgenges faced by the conference organizer:

•    Strengthen relationships between core stakeholders – attendees, speakers and exhibitors
•    Increase networking between attendees, speakers and exhibitors
•    Increase productivity at the conference

The solution included the following key components:

•    Attendee, speaker and exhibitor directories with detailed info on all key stakeholders
•    Online conversations for attendees, speakers and exhibitors
•    Personalized scheduling tools with ability to export MS Outlook, iCal and other calendar aps

The solution generated a significant ROI:

•    27% average increase in event networking due to Zerista (based on survey data)
•    10% average increase in overall event productivity due to Zerista (based on survey data)

If you have any questions  or comments, please feel free comment below.

“The Zerista application is the perfect dashboard for managing conference meetings, messages, while also prospecting……in the past, I would go to a meeting thinking I’m missing something. With your tool I feel like my prep time is well spent and assured I’m not missing a beat. Well done! Thanks again for the tool.” -Exhibitor

“Just a note to say how much I am enjoying using Zerista.  Thanks for providing this great tool! “ -Attendee

“Great tool.  Really enjoying it!” -Attendee

For the 2009 Health Care Conference, the event organizer’s intent was to significantly improve the event ROI for both attendees and exhibitors – Zerista proudly played a key role in helping them achieve this objective.

Customer Needs:
•    Increase meetings between attendees and exhibitors
•    Increase networking between attendees
•    Decrease the planning effort for attendees

Solution:
The Zerista team worked closely with the event producer to deliver a custom Social Event Site that delivered the following key features:

•    Attendee directory and integrated networking tools
•    Exhibitor directory and integrated networking tools
•    1:1 meeting scheduler
•    Real-time event feed with aggregated social media content (youtube, flickr, etc.)

Return-on-Investment (ROI)

The solution generated a significant ROI that substantially exceeded expectations:
•    More than 14,000 messages, meetings and contacts created
•    More than 800 1:1 meetings scheduled
•    Roughly 80% of exhibitors and 50% of attendees used the application
•    Exhibitors scheduled 40% to 80% more meetings due to Zerista

One of the most exciting projects that we’ve worked on recently is Denver’s Great American Beer Festival.   This annual fall classic is rated as one of the 1,000 places to see before you die, drawing upwards of 40,000 attendees and 400 exhibiting brewers a year to sample some of the best beers in the country.  Zerista got involved by working avidly with the event organizers to streamline and enhance this old classic, providing online tools for attendees to find brewers before and during the event itself.

One of the more challenging aspects of this project was to figure out how we could provide a user-friendly venue map interface that would enable attendees to quickly search and find exhibitors from within a single browser window. In the end, and after hours of work, we accomplished our goals to raving reviews; 10,000s of attendees used the site, and the project was viewed as highly successful. In the words of the event organizers themselves:

“With Zerista, we were able to offer our 40,000+ attendees an easier way to plan and map out their event experience at the Great American Beer Festival. Our requirements included an interactive convention hall map that showed the location of more than 400 exhibitors and 50 events. Zerista rapidly delivered an intuitive, easy-to-use solution to a rather challenging mapping project.  The Zerista team was great to work with, and we’re looking forward to working together again in the future.”