2019 produces plenty of opportunities to revamp your strategies when it comes to exhibiting in the coming year. We recently published a blog post with some of the upcoming trends for 2019 in the exhibition circle, and a lot of these involved social media.
Given that this is such a huge element of marketing and exhibiting (sharing your attendance on multiple platforms in advance, running competitions etc) it could never be a bad idea to run through some of the 2019 social media trends that you can incorporate into your exhibition plans this year.
Personal Branding
Every business should know the importance of presenting their brand, particularly over social media. Giving your business a cohesive brand helps immensely in making your business recognisable and can only help further at exhibitions.
Passers-by will automatically form a perception of your company based on your visual identity. If this is recognisable in connection with your social media identity, you have expanded your personal brand to your exhibition.
This can be a huge attraction for some businesses, often people will visit a stand purely on the impression from a business’s social media, but it’s the continuation of the brand throughout the stand and those manning it that encourages people to stay and converse.
Video Content
Video has proven itself over and over to be one of, if not the, most popular and engaging pieces of content. According to Forbes, 64% of customers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about it.
This goes to show that video content has a huge impact in how people will receive you and your business. Incorporating videos of product demonstrations for example, into the display of your stand could be a great persuasive feature to encourage people to request more information or indeed make a purchase.
Of course, sharing these videos on social media beforehand will also help create a buzz for your product, potentially encouraging people to visit in person come exhibition day.
Podcasts and Live Streaming
Another video-based element that could work wonders and is set to hold its popularity in 2019 is live content. Podcasts and live streaming saw a huge increase in popularity in 2018 and were harnessed by several businesses.
Live streaming a competition win or Q&A from your exhibition stand could pull in a lot of visitors both online and in person due to the intrigue this creates. When coupled with hashtags related to the exhibition, this could catch the attention of exhibition attendees that previously wouldn’t have visited your stand, but now are due to this association.
Instagram and Facebook stories are also a good way to promote the ‘in the moment’ action focused part of an exhibition.
This could produce a great amount of traffic for you both on site and online.
Focus on UGC
UGC, or user generated content, is content produced or posted by users of online platforms. It’s already a popular form of content generation for a lot of businesses in their social media plans and can be harnessed for use during an exhibition too.
It can be as simple as displaying a slideshow of Tweeted reviews, or as complex as inviting users to become part of your stand or exhibit through programs reminiscent of the Christmas “Elf Yourself” phenomenon, or by creating something to display on your exhibition stand.
UGC is great because it really emphasises an engagement between brand and customer, rather than just customer to brand.
These interactions harness social media strategies to use in coming exhibitions and help promote a brand as customer friendly.
Influencer Marketing
A tried and tested technique proven to give results, influencer marketing is great since the collaboration can help intrigue a completely new audience and invite them to interact with your company.
This does not just have to be done online – bringing an influencer you work with to an exhibition could have a great effect on attracting a new audience on the day, leading to more visits from previously disengaged attendees, and therefore more opportunities to sell.
The integrity of influencer marketing could be saved by this – whilst fake accounts are an issue for the trustworthiness of influencer marketing currently, you cannot turn down or dispute an in-person appearance
If you need help designing a stand or strategy to help align with these social media trends and make 2019 your best exhibition year yet, please get in touch with 200m2 today!
