We like to thank the people that shared their views and were kind enough to cooperate!

Hope you like it and please share your opinion with us!

Move over event sites!

We believe that the meeting industry needs better-aligned tools to inform, engage and share content with their target audiences. People are lost in all the event data & content available and look for an “Easy Button” to help them in finding what is relevant to them.

Our biggest trend of 2013 is the rise and further development of Social Media Dashboards. A trend also mentioned in Julius Solaris “10 Event Trends for 2013” blog.

Smart dashboards will enhance the Social Media Strategy employed by the industry, help engage audiences and stay engaged as it feeds off several social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn combining it with registration, video & photo feeds, webcasts and even live broadcast opportunities. Dashboards will replace the event site and be truly social. It will function 365/24/7 as the Go2 portal for events optimized for all platforms, controlled by one CMS. All event communication silos will disappear and replaced by the ideal community platform!

 Mark Schors
Creative Director
Icon & Co
m.schors@icondancompnay.com

Say goodbye to regular, same old and boring

1.) Social Media as a marketing strategy
Social Media as a means of communicating your services and products will be a fixed part of your marketing strategy. Fixed and much bigger budgets will be applied and the social media strategy will match your overall marketing campaign. Other sources like print ads and regular online ads will decrease even more.

2.) Meeting Design as a means to improve ROI and fulfill compliance rules
New formats of meetings & events will arise. Say goodbye to regular, same old and boring road shows, study tours and small, local trade shows! We’ll continue to interact and meet in person to exchange services and knowledge. However, the rules and platforms of how and where we meet will have to match compliance rules and time restrictions of the visitors and suppliers. Further, meeting design will play a much bigger role if not the most important one besides compliance.

3.) Think tanks as flexible groups to exchange knowledge & ideas
More and more meetings industry profs will gather in small and flexible think-tanks to create new products, reflect on ideas and exchange knowledge in accordance to a special field of interest or topic. think-tanks will mostly meet online and knowledge and findings will be shared in short white papers made accessible to everyone.

4.) Mobile, mobile, mobile
You don’t use aps? You don’t share knowledge + content via your mobile? You don’t communicate on the go? Get into it! NOW!

Christine Fuchs
Head of Sales & Marketing TW Magazine
meetings industry pro / netizen / social media case hunter / globetrotter
@tinefuchs

Practical innovations

2013 will be a year of practical innovations, with organizers, exhibitors, delegates and venues collaborating in re-inventing the event format, its services and needs.

There will be economic challenges in some sectors and countries, but overall the will and need to meet face to face is providing a return on investment (e.g. in time, money, knowledge) that keeps meetings and events on the agenda. The ROI, however, will be more leading than ever.

We will measure results more closely and are more critical when it comes to follow-up and value.

We will see smarter meetings, designed to meet the needs of new generations that are less likely to listen to keynotes and follow breakout sessions, and are more likely to learn in discussions, networking, active participation in Q&A and audience driven formats, both online and face-to-face.

We will be more connected, using social media, event apps, etc to communicate, network and shape ideas before, during and after the event. Sharing our thoughts; thought leadership.
Hybrid meetings will be more commonplace, reaching a wider audience, and helping organizations in re-using content, enabling a year-round lifespan for the event. Content marketing is key.

Sanne Jolles
Researcher – Business Intelligence in the Meetings Industry
Amsterdam RAI
@SanneJolles

Bridging the gap between technology & participants needs

Never before in event history, technology played such an important role as it did in recent years. And the leading event trends 2013 (eventmanagersblog) show again cool new tools like smart badges & smart dashboards. Many possibilities to attract, engage and increase the impact of live events with technology.

But what are participants asking for?

I took a deeper look in the social media statistics of our conferences in 2012.

Most asked questions in our social media helpdesks at conferences:

- How do I recover my LinkedIn password?

- Can you help me to add this mobile site to my phone’s start screen?

- What do I write in a smart Tweet?

I analyzed the number of people using a mobile event app. Just sharing a QR code and a link: 15% of the participants download. Explaining on stage in normal language how to download, why and how to use it: 45% of the participants download! Explaining Twitter and the use of a hash tag on stage: same increase!

What is the lesson learned in 2012? Participants are willing to use technology, but simply don’t know how! Is there a gap between what technology has to offer and what participants need? Definitely. And how is this gap to bridge: help our audiences to actually use all the social candy!

2013: the year we started humanizing event technology.

Gerdie Schreuders
Online event designer, social media coach and virtual emcee
@LiveOnlineEvent

Greater and deeper integration of Social Media

The meeting industry will see an increasing trend of greater and deeper integration of Social Media in 2013. For example, higher numbers of small businesses are using social media to promote events and engage attendees. Here are some recent research results for small businesses*

• 23% promote events using a hashtag and an additional 26% plan to do over the next six months.
• 27% use Pinterest with 18% having created a specific board for attendees to post on.

This year Philips Healthcare used Pinterest during the RSNA event. A social meetup was also planned by Philips Healthcare for the RSNA event. The meetup took place in Chicago for the Innovations in Health LinkedIn group clinicians and researcher group members who were attending the RSNA event. We have had some very positive feedback from the LinkedIn group members who attended.

*Findings are based on a survey of 299 small business (B2B and B2C) and nonprofits using Constant Contact’s event management product, fielded in September 2012 and published on November 16, 2012

Clive Roach
Social Media Strategist
Global Integrated Marketing & Communications, Philips Healthcare
@jedi_roach

About:

Marcel van Overveld

@MarcelvOverveld

Social Media & On-live Experience Marketing. Mobile Event Apps & b2b apps, Marsmellow, Sports & Family

Amsterdam · http://www.marsmellow.nl