Maximizing Impact: Strategies for Social Engagement and Thought Leadership at Industry Events

As we know, social media is not only an outlet for sharing information – both personal, professional and everything in between – but it’s also a strategic tool to drive engagement between vendors and users. A few months ago we shared 4 ways to use social media to garner media attention in 2024. Today, our counsel is geared toward driving impactful engagement at conferences using hashtags and executives’ thought leadership. 

Hashtags are strategic conference assets

Hashtags are a versatile tool that can enhance brand awareness, discoverability, engagement, organization, and more. Leveraging conference hashtags, or creating your own, can help drive:  

1. Increased visibility: With hashtags your conference-related post automatically becomes discoverable to users following that hashtag, expanding your audience beyond your networked followers. This is especially keen for industry events, as conference-goers look to hashtags to help find relevant talks, booths, and more. For example, longtime Karbo client Penguin Solutions leveraged a unique hashtag (#HPCeveryone) on branded Penguin plushies at a large industry conference and received close to 100 entries from social media alone.  
2. Enhanced Engagement: Posts that include relevant hashtags usually have the most engagement. They attract interested audiences (and potential customers), which leads to more likes, comments, and most importantly, shares—expanding influence and reach.
3. Targeted marketing for brand awareness: Hashtags enable executives and businesses to foster a sense of community by reaching specific audiences that are interested in more niche content and topics. Leveraging unique hashtags can drive user-generated content and broaden awareness for your personal and professional brand. 

Being a thought leader rather than a thought follower 

Industry events are the perfect place to display unique thoughts that inspire new opportunities, drive audience engagement, capture lead generation, and display your company’s breadth of knowledge at crowded industry events.  Ensuring your executive or business’ social media aligns with what you’re messaging and offering at the event helps accrue an engaging audience. Here are a few ideas to consider:

1. Talk titles: Consider amplifying unique thoughts with catchy talk titles that spark immediate interest and go against the grain. Attendees are usually given an agenda with all presentations, having a title that stands out will likely leave an impression on the busy conference-goer. 
2. Live social broadcasting from the show floor: This tactic has helped Karbo clients dramatically increase followers and engagement. Report from booths, ask questions of attendees and publish their answers, be that man or woman on ‘the street’ that’s providing interesting timely news from the show floor. Consider using an engaging platform (i.e., X, Reddit, etc.) to invite post-conference thoughts. 
3. Amplify via Social Media: Up the volume on your booth happenings, your executive’s views and speaking with hashtags and unique offerings, such as a raffle or giveaways (using a hashtag) or one-of-a-kind photo opportunities that are sure to resonate with your brand. 

Being a thought leader rather than a thought follower captivates an audience that drives engagement and awareness on social media. From harnessing the power and value of industry events to optimizing tools, impactful ROI is exemplified by the countless clients we’ve supported in gathering record-breaking attendance, social media engagement via optimal hashtags, and results that are proven to drive sales. 

We’ve seen firsthand from the countless clients we’ve supported how effective strategies, such as  creative social programs, using the right hashtags, and other tactics can lead to impressive results, from increased attendance at events to heightened engagement online to sales leads.