It’s easy to overlook the value of building business relationships in the flurry of AI trends and data-based marketing. However, in the B2B landscape where contracts can range from a few thousand to a couple of million dollars, establishing personal connections is essential to secure deals and maintain relationships.

By prioritizing relationship-building at events, businesses can gain a deeper understanding of the zeitgeist of their prospects and gain a competitive edge in the market. Rather than relying solely on online interactions, attending events allows businesses to engage in meaningful conversations and establish connections that can ultimately lead to long-term success.

With the right approach, supporting your event participation with social media engagement can give your team an edge in building business relationships, improving customer loyalty, and gaining a deeper understanding of the evolving needs of the market. 

Announce your Attendance in Advance

Announcing your team’s attendance prior to a B2B networking event is crucial. This early announcement helps you get on attendees’ radars, leading to meeting bookings while also allowing you to frontload your schedule and assess potential leads. LinkedIn and Twitter are definitely going to be the key platforms your team will need to leverage. Don’t forget to include any links provided by the organizers, particularly in your LinkedIn posts, to make it easy for attendees to find you.

Social media is an excellent tool for informing attendees where they can meet your marketing, sales, and/or product  team members and for reminding them of your booth number. By using social media to promote your on-ground event team, you can build awareness of who will be at your booth or walking the floor, creating excitement and anticipation for your brand.

To make your team feel like rockstars and perform like one too, it’s essential to support them with pre-event promotion on social media. This can include highlighting their expertise and experience, sharing their bios, and even creating teaser videos to generate buzz.

Tagging the event organizers in your posts is indispensable. Most organizers are happy to like and share your content which allows you to expand your reach via their networks and reach a broader audience.

Twitter can be used to create a countdown and crowdsource talking points for your booth. LinkedIn is an excellent platform for highlighting your attending team and establishing professional connections and meetings. By leveraging social media before the event, you can increase your chances of success and create a memorable experience for attendees, ultimately driving more leads and conversions for your business.

Use Social Media’s Live Features

At a B2B networking event, keeping your audience engaged is critical to making the most out of your attendance. Live Tweeting and End-of-Day Recaps on LinkedIn are two great ways to piggyback on the recency and attention surrounding the event to engage your audience, especially those who were unable to attend. By providing updates in real-time, you can help your followers feel like they’re a part of the action, which can create a sense of excitement and FOMO (fear of missing out) that motivates them to attend your future events.

Publishing content during the event can also help create opportunities for your team. For example, one of our clients’ prospects saw their event posts on LinkedIn and decided to drop by the company booth leading to a direct conversation with the CEO they’d been trying to meet with for months. This effectively shortened their sales cycle and opened up new opportunities for future collaboration.

In addition to live updates, it’s also important to gather insights and take pictures of your booth and the people who dropped by as part of your daily event task. This content can be repurposed later on social media or in follow-up communications with attendees, allowing you to extend the impact of your event beyond the event itself.

By providing valuable and engaging content during a B2B networking event, you can not only keep your audience interested and excited about your brand but also create new opportunities for your team to make meaningful connections and drive business growth.

From Likes to Leads

Connecting with attendees during and after a B2B networking event is essential for building meaningful relationships and generating leads. One effective way to do this is by making a big deal of those who visited your booth. Share their insights and tag them and their company on social media to showcase your engagement with attendees.

Connecting and tagging fellow exhibitors can help to demonstrate camaraderie and further expand your network. Utilizing social media to connect with attendees through LinkedIn messages and Twitter DMs can also be a great way to stay in touch and build relationships.

However, the work doesn’t stop once the event is over. Following up and maintaining ongoing engagement with new networking partners is crucial for developing leads and generating ROI. Tips for using social media to stay in touch include commenting on their posts and sharing valuable content.

Finally, taking the time to learn about the people who liked or commented on your posts can also be beneficial as they may be potential leads or partners that want to help further your business goals. By prioritizing social media engagement and follow-up, you can maximize the value of B2B networking events and generate long-term success for your business.

All the Best to the Away Team

In summary, social media is crucial for B2B networking events, as it helps build relationships before, during, and after the event.

• Pre-event: it’s important to announce your attendance, tag the event organizers, and promote your team.
• During the event: live-tweeting and end-of-day recaps can keep your audience engaged and create opportunities for your team.
• Post-event: connecting with new acquaintances on LinkedIn and having a follow-up strategy in place is key to securing leads and making the investment worthwhile.

In-person events provide unique opportunities for relationship-building and revenue generation that can’t be fully replicated virtually, so embrace these opportunities with enthusiasm and promote your brand.

If you’re interested in getting support for an upcoming event, contact us and we can utilize our B2B event support experience to help your team make the most out of any conference.