Today I attended a very informative session offered by the Trade Show Exhibitors Association, Canada East Chapter on Social media and its importance to the event and exhibition industry.

 It was moderated by our very own Barry Siskind and I certainly learned a lot about social media tools and most importantly how it can be used in our industry. Going forward we will look at how our brand can begin participating and what goals we should set to measure against.  The panel also discussed how important it is to have built in analytics and we will be exploring 2 tools that were mentioned, hootsuite.com  and tweetdeck.com

One of the overriding comments is that social media is part of your business/marketing plan and not a separate entity. While everyone expressed concerns about how to effectively engage social media, all agreed that it is a growing segment of the market.

 What tools do you think are a good fit?  

Arlene Campbell| General Manager Sales & Events| Exhibition Place l Direct Energy Centre | Allstream Centre