Samuel Smith

About The Author

Sam has been working with technology professionally for 13 years and international meetings and events for 3 years in Europe. He worked at Ford Motor Company, 3M, GT Urological and Shockfish SA (creator of Spotme).

July 19, 2010

43 Social Media Tips, Tricks, Big Ideas & Real World Examples for Meetings & Events

By Samuel Smith

When it comes to Social Media – all of us are learning. Some of us faster than others. You should be able to benefit from the successes, failures and experiments of other event professionals.

Think of this list as a “social media launching pad” to get your event’s social media program off the ground in a hurry. If you use all of the resources here – then you will find yourself inside a collaborative community of event professionals that are leading the events industry into the world of social media.

May 17, 2010

Stars, Champions, Trolls and Your Event Community

By Samuel Smith

We know much more about setting up and managing an event community than we did a year ago.

The report “Best Practices in Online Community Management” produced by Pathable reads like a secret decoder ring for first time event community managers.

March 1, 2010

How to Make Your Event’s Social Network Easy to Join

By Samuel Smith

For some attendees, the registration process for your event social network is the equivalent of climbing a steep rock face. It appears impossible.

You ask them to go to some website that they have never heard of – register for a username and password, enter some personal information, wait for an email verification, click a link to validate the email address, fill out a profile, upload a picture (after they find a descent one), etc.

For some people this is a hassle that they don’t want. And while YOU argue that the benefits of joining are worth it – they argue that it is too hard, has too many steps and takes too much time.

February 22, 2010

Lessons in Engaging Attendees from Event Camp NYC 2010

By Samuel Smith

On Saturday, the self-organized twitter group #eventprofs organized its first conference. The event was called Event Camp and was centered around Social Media in Events. This was supposed to be an unconference – but was really more of a tribal meeting in my mind. [See Mike McCurry's post for more] You see, this group recognizes each other’s unique talents and uses those as an opportunity to learn from each other and work together.

November 14, 2009

26 Tips for Designing Great Webcasts & Webinars

By Samuel Smith

It seems like webcasts at conferences are popping up all over the place. I believe that webcasts are going to become an important virtual component of face 2 face meetings in the future.

Why? Webcasts open a “window” to your event and allow people who could not attend your event to join the experience. In some webcasts, the experience is only listening and watching event content. In others, participants can join a backchannel and discuss the content together. In all cases, they allow you to share the experience – with potential new members (if you are an association) or with members that have never attended your “World” education conference.