Big Reasons Your Event Needs a Mobile Platform
Social media has radically shifted the paradigm in which making connections occurs, a change with huge ramifications for the event industry.
According to comscore, the self-touted global source of digital market intelligence, as of February 2011 one out of every eight minutes online was spent on Facebook. Yes, the obsession with social networking partially stems from our curiosity to know whose gotten married/pregnant/incarcerated since high school, but in reality a only a small portion of our time spent on sites like Facebook is consumed by such creeping (“Facebook stalking,” if you will). What it really symbolizes is the fact that people are, at their core, social creatures. We want information, we want to sell our products and services, but, more than anything, we want to connect with one another.
Networking
Pre-social media, one would arrive at an event with a limited amount of time to meet, mingle, spark a conversation, and – hopefully – develop a couple of meaningful connections. Today those are balls that can be rolling in the days, weeks, and months preceding the event itself. With social media technology, attendees and exhibitors are enabled to participate in group discussions, share ideas, spark conversations, and request meetings long before anyone boards a plane or leaves their office. Rather than relying on the serendipitous nature of meet and mingle events, one can search through a database of every attendee, speaker, and event session in order to filter out the most promising networking opportunities available based on their specific interests and event goals.
In the end, not only does social media technology allow individuals to begin making connections way back in the planning stage of an event, but this foresight allows them to plan for the event itself so that, when it arrives, they are able to allocate their time and energy during those few days most effectively (and then continue the conversation in the days, weeks, and months to follow).
Simplicity
Let’s be honest: navigating through an event can be an absolute nightmare.
Schedule changes are inevitable. Keeping track of exhibitor brochures and business cards, along with a 3” thick stacks of session schedules, itineraries, brochures, and maps, can quickly become a discombobulated, confusing, and downright miserable ordeal. Exhibition halls are huge. People are everywhere, business needs to happen, and there is never enough time in the day.
With the help of mobile technology, events become manageable again. When things are manageable, you’re free to get the most out of them, and maybe even (gasp!) enjoy them a bit.
The Moral
A great event is energized, productive, progressive, and dynamic. Without the right tools, however, any event can quickly become an overwhelming, chaotic mess that fails to reach it’s maximum potential.
Companies and individuals that utilize event technology prevent the little administrative inconveniences that unnecessarily complicate an event while simultaneously giving themselves an edge before, during, and after the event itself.
