We had our very first Community Manager Breakfast of the new season last week, on the topic of event management. It was a great discussion and a fantastic group of people – thank you to everyone who came out!

Many thanks to Kat Otto of Galvanize for taking notes (and a big thank-you to Galvanize for hosting the event)! These represent only part of what we spoke about – you’ll have to attend for the full shebang. Interested in joining us next time? If you’re a community manager, sign up here. If you’re not a community manager, I’m so, so sorry.

Notes

Have clear goals for your event

• Go to other events, and note what you like…but more importantly, what you hate.
• The very smallest things are the things that people remember the most; attention to detail is key
• No-brainer: create really relevant content that focuses on helping people do their job better
• Make sure human connections are happening – giving people an experience that they remember
• Don’t forget the fun factor!

Drawing an audience/scaling future audience:

• Make sure relevant & key people are there – give out free tickets! (and ask them to tweet about it) 🙂
• Show who else is going to be there – “if they’re going, I have to go”
• Take the star of the conference/event & follow through with more content, events
• Lean on real-time social data from the event

Struggle: online events/forums/platforms – not as interactive as hoped
How do you pose questions/give instructions in a way that guests/attendees feel that their input & participation is needed & valued?

• Need first followers/active participants to start the conversation
• Pathable – interact with other attendees, articles by speakers, discussion boards, etc. – pre & post event – a private community – added an additional layer of community
• Take interesting content & push it out to social media
• Get speakers to seed content – other topics surrounding the topic they are planning to speak on  (you don’t want to ruin the talk)
• CMX Summit does this really well
• Logistical discussions may not be sexy, but can get people interacting prior

Event Series
How do you keep people coming back?

• Ask what they want to see, why they’re not coming back (though probably ask more than once to get an honest answer)
• Reach outside & beyond the pool/database of people that you’re given. What adjacent events/communities can you promote to?
• Relevant recurring content vs diversity of content
• Find your focus. Parisoma has been successful in bringing their own members to events – specialize in business content, which is hyper-relevant to their members

Revitalizing a stale event

• Try new locations
• Consider hosting less frequently
• Make it more exclusive
• Re-brand – new name, new tone, etc.
• Take a break – 6 months – make people miss it!
• Be strategic about messaging, though. You haven’t failing, you’re “taking a break to plan exciting new things”.

Structuring an event team

• Content managers: background in the arts & design can be good
• Do you separate logistics and content?

Looking forward to seeing folks at the next breakfast!