Social media and exhibiting

Social media has become a dominant marketing tool, one that allows companies to engage with their current and prospective clients like never before.

It is estimated that 2.5 million people in the UK use the micro-blogging site Twitter, and Facebook has over 500 million users worldwide. Most successful marketing and advertising campaigns now encompass some element of social media, making use of these kinds of social networking platforms to reach out to and broaden their target audience.

Social media can also be used to enhance the effectiveness of your company's appearance at an exhibition, whether you plan to put on on a key presentation or simply set up your pop-up displays in your usual spot.

To give you some ideas on how to incorporate social media into your exhibiting strategy, take a look at a couple of examples of what other companies have done.

• Pre-show marketing. Generate interest in your company or brand online with customer engagement games, competitions etc. This will help you whip up some interest and generate a buzz about your upcoming show appearance.

• Mobile tickets, vouchers and special offers. Whilst the organisers of an exhibition may use mobile tickets and barcode scanners to admit visitors and cut down on paper usage, you can use this idea to draw visitors to your display stands with special offers and mobile vouchers.

• Use Twitter in presentations. It can be the perfect tool to help you run real-time Q&A sessions and engage your audience.