Satellite 2010: How to use social media to support sales at a trade show

My colleague Marc Hausman and I set up a blog (What's New at Satellite 2010) to support and cover the time we spent at the Satellite 2010 trade show. As you can guess, this show, held every year in DC, is the premier trade show for the satellite and space community. Since 1995, we (Strategic Communications Group) have been working with leading satellite companies to develop and execute PR, communications and now social media marketing campaigns. Our client roster over the years has included firms like:

• SES Americom
• Datapath
• Microspace Communications Corp.
• Knight Sky
• Thrane & Thrane
• Tachyon Networks
• Integral Systems
• Helius
• Stratos
• IDB Mobile Communications
• Worldspace

For those of you that read this blog, you know that what differentiates Strategic is its sales-oriented approach to social media engagement, and proven ability to leverage all of its industry connections and market relationships to identify sales, partnership, employee recruitment and financial/M&A opportunities for its clients.

Inviting trade show participants to be interviewed on the blog (http://whatsnewatsatellite2010.com) served not only as a non-salesy, value-add icebreaker with established relationships but allowed us to approach new contacts positioned as industry thought leaders. We pulled in some industry related content via RSS feeds and promoted the site via our satellite related twitter feed, @SpaceTwits, as well as targeted LinkedIn groups. Add in leads generated from inbound comments, and the site turned out to be a low cost, high return trade show sales support success story.

Here are some of the posts we wrote:

See you next year at Satellite 2011 (don’t get lost!)

When Satellite Goes Mainstream

Spending Time with MPEG-4’s Champion

News Coverage of Satellite 2010

Hughes’ Bardo Sees Growth in Broadband, Reliability

Govt Sat Service Buying Remains Disjointed

Great Opening Panel at Satellite 2010

Quiet Press Room Betrays Exhibit Hall Buzz

Satellite 2010 and Social Media

Top Trends to Look for at Satellite 2010

New Location for Satellite 2010 This Year (No, not Las Vegas)

Now That’s Global Connectivity

Local Press Coverage of Satellite 2010

What do you think of the site? Does your company execute tactical social media programs like this to support sales? Do you think they are worth the effort?

Satellite 2010

The Satellite 2010 show is this week and is being held here in DC at the Gaylord Convention Center. My colleague, Marc Hausman and I are going to be blogging at the show and interviewing thought leaders and business executives about the satellite industry, trends for 2010 and its future prospects.

If you are interested in cool things like rocket science (yep, really), check out the blog here: whatsnewatsatellite2010.com or follow the Twitter stream, SpaceTwits.

Already we've compiled a pretty strong list of social media properties in the satellite industry....

Despite Rapid Adoption of Social Media in Other Industries, Healthcare Lags Behind

My company just released the results of our 2nd annual socialmedia adoption in the healthcare industry. For the second year in a row, this annual survey of Internet users shows continued slow adoption of Web 2.0 in healthcare.

Read Strategic's press release here...

While the results seem generally negative, it's worth sharing the full results so everyone can compare with last years results, especially as HIMSS 2010 is going on this week.

Here is last year's post with the results: http://majka.blogspot.com/2009/03/prognosis-negative-on-social-media.html

Here is last year's press release: http://gotostrategic.com/site/index.php/site/news_single/prognosis_negative_on_social_media_adoption_in_healthcare/

Major takeaways:
- prognosis for social media adoption in the healthcare industry is still grim.
- sentiment in question 3 improved from 96 to 91 percent (almost 5%) but that still means almost everyone is still dissatisfied.
- we added a new question this year- question 4. Patient-focused support groups and Government healthcare agencies received generally good marks for effectively using social media.

Here are this year's full results: Let me know what you think- leave a comment...

1. How often do you review blogs, social networks, online communities and discussion forms for healthcare related information?

• Never- 0%
• Only once- 1.7%
• Occasionally- 35%
• Once a day- 20%
• All the time- 45%

2. What kinds of information do you look for in social media and online communities?

• Personal health information- 45%
• Public policy information- 53.3%
• Scientific research and developments- 56.7%
• Market trends- 66.7%
• Employment information- 26.7%

3. Do you think the health care industry, as a whole, is using social media well enough to communicate, share information and engage with consumers?
Yes- 8.3%
No- 91.7%

4. Are there segments of the healthcare industry who are superior in efforts to communicate, share information and engage with patients / consumers?

• Insurers / payers- 3.3%
  
• Healthcare providers- 18.3%
  
• Pharmaceutical companies- 23.3%
  
• Patient-focused support groups- 55.0%
  
• Government healthcare agencies (i.e., FDA, CDC, etc.)- 36.7%
  

(BTW, any comments about statistics, sample size or standard deviations will be summarily mocked. :))

How Many People Think Health Care Industry Is Doing A Great Job with Social Media?

Do you think the health care industry, as a whole, is using social media well enough to communicate, share information and engage with consumers? Well, we are doing an informal survey right now to gauge people's opinion and preliminary results indicated that only 10% think so.

What do you think? Is that dead wrong? Will social media ever take off in healthcare . Who's doing a good job building a community. Take a second and fill out a quick four question survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WF2XWTH

GovDelivery Social Media Marketing Case Study

Happy Monday morning! Earlier in the year, I started a regular Monday social media marketing case study. So far, we've looked at work we've done for companies like British Telecom, Microsoft, Monster.com and Sun Microsystems. All great high profile brands...

but what about smaller companies with leaner budgets? Well, the great thing about integrating traditional PR with social media marketing is that it levels the playing field dramatically for companies that are trying to get cut-through on a limited budget. If you can create great content for your targeted community, content that they really want to consume and share, on a regular basis, they will. That is basically what we do...

Here is a great example of this approach in real life...

Situation

The world’s leading provider of government-to-citizen communication, GovDelivery provides the infrastructure for government entities to communicate better with citizens and deploy Web 2.0 technologies. Despite working hand-in-hand with many government agencies and being the depended-upon vendor for digital communication with constituents, GovDelivery was relatively unknown among the Government 2.0 community, government influencers and thought-leaders.

Goal

GovDelivery came to Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) in 2008 looking to improve their awareness among government influencers and decision makers, drive corporate valuation, and generate leads from agencies and government entities looking for a better way to serve and inform their constituents.

Solution

Strategic worked with GovDelivery to establish a traditional media relations strategy designed to generate awareness for the company among government influencers and decision makers while simultaneously assisting the company in taking steps towards social media adoption. Strategic worked with GovDelivery on the creation of the Reach the Public campaign, which consisted of targeted blog writing and blogger relations outreach, in conjunction with the launch of a Twitter stream dedicated to injecting GovDelivery into the Gov’t 2.0 arena.

Results

GovDelivery’s media relations activities culminated in the placement of a byline in Federal Computer Week that positioned Scott Burns, CEO and co-founder, as a thought leader in the government 2.0 space. Subsequently, Scott was chosen to be a presenter at a Government 2.0 “bootcamp” well attended by local “goverati,” experts on the issue of government 2.0 techniques.

Strategic’s social and traditional media activities secured dozens of high-level media placements and buzz in October when GovDelivery acquired government-focused social network GovLoop, known as the “Facebook of the Feds.” In January of this year, the increased visibility and rapid growth of GovDelivery helped drive the purchase of 89% of the company by the Internet Capital Group (ICG) at terms favorable to the company’s shareholders.

Here is a link to the whole case study, along with links to the various web sites: http://gotostrategic.com/site/index.php/site/cases/govdelivery/