Taking Social Media Offline: Continuing The Conversation at Conferences
Microphone picture from Shutterstock
Since launching its new service this spring, an online repository of video tutorials for professionals, Skillfeed employees have been regularly in touch with both customers and contributors to bring in new business and interest and fresh content. In late June, they had their first offline opportunity to speak directly to consumers at the HOW Design conference in San Francisco.
In this digital age, you can do most of the legwork and planning from behind your desk. But nothing can replace face-to-face interactions and engagement. Attending big, annual conferences should be a central part of any marketing strategy to serve both your existing community and to discover new audiences for your product or service. The key is to maintain the right balance between reliance on new technology and social media to carry a conversation while still performing some traditional marketing efforts to help increase your overall reach.
In the case of Skillfeed, the social media channels preceded even the launch of the site and service. The hope was to create some buzz and to sign up as many well-known instructors as possible. That way, when the site was ready for public view and consumption, it would be full of compelling content from recognizable names, covering an array of subjects. Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus did the trick. The outreach team also used those platforms to offer its contributors relevant updates.
Social media was a critical element in the early stages. After the soft launch of the site, the importance of those channels only got reinforced. Skillfeed began to show itself as a two-sided marketplace for people who wish to teach and for those who wish to learn. A great deal of thought went into how to attract these different audiences; reaching them both at once is central to Skillfeed’s social media strategy. That’s why attending HOW, which brings in diverse, design-minded individuals from across the globe, was identified as the right location for Skillfeed’s first real-world exhibition.
Since Skillfeed is exclusively a digital service, the team made sure that all interactions drove people back to the website. They encouraged people to browse the site on the booth’s computer or on their mobile phones and then to provide feedback. The Skillfeed reps drafted a short survey covering which online platforms people preferred, what challenges they face, and which skills they want to work on. Anyone who participated got a complimentary one-week trial with Skillfeed. The honest dialogue and valuable insight attendees gave will go toward helping to shape the product and offerings.
Social media is also a great and useful way to continue those conversations back at home. The Skillfeed team collected information from hundreds of attendees and got dozens of new followers at HOW. Now, the focus goes to delivering courses and opportunities that will appeal to a new crop of customers. Over the next few months, Skillfeed will roll out more courses related to honing presentation skills, a common inquiry from visitors to their HOW booth. When those courses enter the Skillfeed collection, announcements will go out on social media to let new followers know that their requests have been met.
Seeing the way that people sample the products up close, the Skillfeed team got a greater sense of what was working effectively and what needed some more attention. Even the surveys they handed out in person brought in more detailed descriptions than they would have found through circulating the same survey online. The social media editor will be rolling out regular check-ins with the Skillfeed community, for both customers and contributors, as part of a long-term strategy to keep this open dialogue going.
Danny Groner is the manager of blogger partnerships and outreach for Shutterstock and Skillfeed. Learn more with this social media marketing tutorial, courtesy of Skillfeed.
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