I attended a conference for part of today, and upon arriving, I saw a lot of people who weren’t very engaged. They were all just… there. Most of them had their company shirts on, were standing around their company booths, and they were doing their best to wrangle some attention for their product from a bunch of other people not required to wear their company shirts.
The only booths where something seemed to happen were populated by very attractive women, loud talking men with headset microphones, and a giveaway for a free iPod (I forget who it was – Grace Piper? – who told the guy at another even that it was lame to hand out iPods because we all have them).
But if you realize that a conference or a trade show is basically just another kind of media, one performed alive in real time in a given space, then you can apply some of what I’m about to say next to your own media (be that a blog or a podcast or whatever).
Look Beyond Your Keynotes
At a conference, keynote speakers are often times what draws attendees to pay and show up. But if that’s all you’ve got, then the rest of the show is going to be fairly lackluster. You need an invigorated sense of energy around the rest of your event, and you need participation. Same goes for your new media. If you’re doing a blog or a podcast, make sure there’s more to it than just your voice.
Make Participation for your Audience
If I were on that show floor, I’d look for ways to get people walking by my booth into the story. I’d make them a valued part of the equation, and not just a lean-back audience.
Make it Easy to Communicate
I can’t tell you how many booths were well branded and full of people who seemed uninterested in engaging me in a conversation. Does your new media product just sit around blathering all day? Start a conversation?
Try Something Utterly New
Dare to go a little off-topic. Hell, go WAY off topic and really startle me back into paying attention. Make it bright and shiny, but not loud just for loud’s sake.
Make Meeting Spaces
Can your new media product have spaces for community to talk, to share, to meet with each other? Is this your comments section? Is it even further than that? Can you encourage fan-to-fan conversations through your platform?
Keep the Schedule Full
If you want people to hustle around and appreciate your event, keep the schedule moving along. Ditto your podcast. If you’re shooting a weekly videoblog, then shoot it weekly. If you’re doing a daily audio podcast, then get it out there on time. Give people a sense that you’re going to keep things moving.
Your Thoughts
Have you attended conferences? What else might be a similarity to consider between a show and your product? Or is this just way off the mark?
Photo Credit: Clintus