Social media and trade fair communication are a picture-perfect team. Channels such as Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok or X are ideal for keeping your target groups informed before, during and up to date before, during and after the trade fair, promote engagement and present your brand in the best possible light. Conversely, trade fairs are perfect for producing varied content for the various channels. How you can best utilise social media and what you need to bear in mind at the various stages of trade fair planning, we have summarised here in 7 tips.
1. Tip: Plan your strategy
Proper planning before the trade fair is the be-all and end-all of successful social media marketing. Who is my target group? what do I want to achieve and which formats and measures do I use for this? These questions should be answered in advance, as well as the responsibilities – i.e. who posts which content on which channels and when. Not to forget: Find out the right hashtags and accounts to link to in good time, because large events usually have one or more official event hashtags, as well as their own social media accounts, to make your content visible to an even larger audience.
2nd tip: Arouse interest
Draw attention to yourself. This applies during the trade fair itself, of course, but especially in the weeks leading up to the event. After all, your target groups should know that you will be there and why your trade fair stand is worth a visit. So tell them about your offer in advance in the form of pictures or videos on social media. If you are planning great goodies, competitions or other attractive offers during the trade fair, then it’s okay to publicise them.
3rd tip: Use the right tools
Let the technology work for you wherever possible. There are now a variety of tools available to make social media work easier, that can be used to better manage or completely automate numerous processes. This includes the scheduled publication of posts as well as community management, keyword and engagement monitoring, or competition analyses, community management , the monitoring of keywords and engagement, or competition analyses. Tools such as Swat.io, Hootsuite or the Facebook Creator Studio enable cross-channel planning of your social media media activities and thus give you more time at the trade fair, to concentrate on interacting with your audience.
Tip 4: Encourage interaction
Speaking of the public: interaction with visitors to the stand is the gold of the trade fair presence and also of all social media measures. Likes, comments, sharing or saving posts not only promotes brand loyalty among your target group, but also the reach of your posts, as they characterise the relevance of content for the algorithm. Settingincentives to increase interaction, is therefore a particularly hot tip for social media at the trade fair. This works very well via competitions, votes, quizzes and asking the right questions for your interest groups. The sharing of user-generated content – i.e. photos and videos from participants in connection with your products – also helps to increase interactions.
Tip 5: Content Creation
“Content is king” is common social media wisdom. And on site at a trade fair is the ideal opportunity, to quickly create large amounts of valuable content – whether time-lapse videos of the set-up, short interviews with the team and visitors or reels of interaction with your exhibited products:inside or reels of interaction with your exhibited products. This content can and should be posted directly on your social media channels, However, you can also “recycle” it again and again , for example to illustrate blog posts and newsletters or as photo material for press releases and your website.
6th tip: Stay flexible
If you have prepared an editorial plan in advance and have havealready planned many posts for publication, you are on the safe side. But unforeseen things can always happen at a trade fair. Perhaps the result of the planned interviews is not as good as or unexpectedly good recordings of the set-up are made? Flexibility is requiredhere. You should not deviate too far from your original strategy , but if opportunities arise spontaneously or creative ideas pop up, then you should make the most of them.
Tip 7: Evaluation of the measures
Have you set your goals in advance – as described in tip 1? Then after the trade fair is the right time to evaluate the measures taken and analyse the relevant KPIs. Valuable information can be gleanedfrom such reports and optimise the social media strategy for future trade fair appearances.
Conclusion : Trade fair success with social media
Social media opens up numerous new possibilities at a trade fair. Above all , interaction with your target groups can be improved and and collecting new contacts is also easier . It isimportant to define a clear and sensible strategy for all your channels in advance, utilise suitable tools and tailor the content to your audience. Ongoing monitoring and subsequent evaluation should also not be forgotten.
Did you like this article? Then take a look at our social media presence on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and get inspiration for your own measures on the social web.
