Using Twitter as Part of Your
Trade Show Marketing Strategy

To promote a trade show successfully on Twitter, you must tweet before and during the event. Weeks before the trade show, start contacting exhibitors you met at previous events and find out if they are interested in partnering with you to promote their exhibits on Twitter. Consider contacting at least 10-20 other exhibitors in order to gain some traction in your promotional efforts.

Once you find several exhibitors who are interested, organize a conference call to discuss what type of content to tweet and when you’re going to tweet it. For the meeting, prepare some sample tweets and gather links to relevant content so you can discuss it. Tweeting about each other’s booths during the event is a great way to drive more traffic to everyone’s exhibits.

Create a Hash Tag

Use your website and marketing communications to let customers and prospects know you will be tweeting about the trade show. Create a #hash tag for the event so followers can easily locate your messages and stay informed.

For example, if the trade show is called Technology Expo 2012, your hash tag could look like this: #techexpo12. Add the hash tag to all relevant tweets so your trade show messages can be easily found and identified.

Schedule Your Tweets

Rather than tweeting everything live, use a Twitter scheduling service so thing are less chaotic. Scheduling services allow you to schedule the most important tweets in advance.

You and the other exhibitors participating in the Twitter promotion can decide on an appropriate timing and then tweet live throughout the show to complement the scheduled tweets.

Organize a Tweet-Up

To network with other exhibitors at the trade show, organize a Tweet-up for attendees and exhibitors. A Tweet-up provides a way for followers to chat in person without the 140 character limit and make new contacts.

Let all of your Twitter followers know that you’ll be organizing a Tweet-up and encourage them to tell all of their followers, as well. The more, the better. If possible, try to get a high profile Tweeter to attend the Tweet-up because it will generate a lot more buzz that way.

Using Twitter as part of your trade show marketing strategy will add topspin to your promotional efforts and enable you to maximize your exhibiting success.

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