The National Restaurant Show, happening in Chicago this weekend, is by far the dominant restaurant/foodservice tradeshow in North America. The National Restaurant Association website states that this show draws, on annual average, 50,000 attendees internationally over four days. This year, they state there are over 1800 exhibitors.
The Assumption
Tradeshows provide a unique opportunity to bring together industries. They offer community-building in centralized real-time, provide buyers with connective opportunities to meet sellers, provide industry specific educational opportunities and.. most importantly, have the potential to leverage all of this to broad-path long-tail effectiveness via the social web. Leverage through the social web:
- provides exhibitors and attendees greater contact time – before, during and after
- deepens the educational experience for attendees, both in products/services and in seminars
- creates a broad path of micro data points, all search engine optimized, for both the tradeshow and exhibitors (and attendees, for that matter)
- deepens the connective fabric of the industry
We’ve been following the Twitter hashtag for this event #NRAShow, since the beginning and have made some initial observations of engagement by Show attendees and exhibitors.
Before sharing these, a shout-out must go to Paul Barron, for providing a hashtag metric analysis site we could observe. Paul purchased a hashtag tracking service which can be found here for the NRA Show: http://bit.ly/jOU8JB
»
592 – Number of Contributors to Hashtag
86 – Number of Exhibitor Twitter Accounts Using Hashtag
506 – Number of Non-Exhibitor Twitter Accounts Using Hashtag
»
14.5% – Percentage of Exhibitor Twitter Accounts to Total Tweeters on Hashtag
1019 – Average # of Followers – Exhibitors Using Hashtag
9 – Average # of Tweets During Show – Exhibitors Using Hashtag
»
85.5% – Percentage of Non-Exhibitors to Total Tweeters on Hashtag
»
4.7% – Percentage of Hashtag Tweeting Exhibitors to Estimated # of Show Exhibitors
1% – Percentage of Hashtag Tweeting Non-Exhibitors to Estimated # of Show Attendees
»
Chalkboarder’s Opinions
Exhibitor adoption, as evidenced by the hashtag traffic, is still in its infancy.
Attendees are not using social media to interact with the Show.
Attendees interacting with Show exhibit hashtag useage rate six times that of exhibitors.
Show management could do a better job of marketing the social web interaction to both exhibitors and attendees.
Exhibitors could develop strategies using traditional marketing that drive potential attendees into the social web before, during and after the Show.
The National Restaurant Show has a clear opportunity to exponentially increase exhibitor exposure (sales opportunities) to attendees using the social web in future shows. Effective deployment of a comprehensive strategy should include:
- Year round social web engagement by Show management with exhibitors and existing/potential attendees.
- Provide exhibitors with social web tools to increase engagement between exhibitors and attendees before, during and after the Show. Such tools might include:
- Traditional marketing “pushes” to the social web connectivity with exhibitors
- Marketing promotions to attendees by exhibitors to connect in social media, via traditional and social web strategies
- Provide an online database, searchable by product/service category, for visitors to the Show website to find exhibitor social web accounts – significantly prior to the Show
Wrap-up
Nothing beats getting face-to-face at a tradeshow. Social media, conducted well, considerably leverages the opportunity to bring exhibitors and attendees together during a Show. Exhibitors and attendees who have connected and conversed prior to actually meeting at Show time, make the most efficient use of their time, leading to other potentialities to present to both attendees and exhibitors.
»
Notes on Data
1. List of Identified Exhibitors Using the Hashtag
Top and bottom four not used in calculations.
Twitter Account # Followers # Following # Tweets
nutrilabeling 0 0 67
jamesoneida 5 16 12
epicuredigital 6 5 73
hubertco 7 0 0
99apps 25 0 24
vinnyoneida 25 85 28
chicagobuffets 27 87 80
pepsicofoodserv 36 259 24
compelcart 41 91 296
winecrusader 43 37 283
manualsolution 54 103 29
adstonature 58 138 64
getpunchh 65 76 148
mccormick4chefs 76 80 103
olo 80 63 70
tlpriest 85 121 97
magictradeshows 99 200 211
smrestaurants 130 218 188
culinitweets 132 138 94
merchantware 136 302 110
expion 137 41 292
vollrathco 151 101 221
finelinesetting 156 421 503
bungemoe 169 222 269
hennypenny 174 217 585
scotsmanice 210 249 312
wineshowcasemag 233 755 4
squirrelsystems 236 455 156
grecian_delight 240 256 505
nrnjobplate 241 153 1124
usfoodservicesf 257 516 439
ifanca 258 300 351
cobblestoneoven 263 1172 98
capitolcups 267 420 823
hospitalitypads 281 1003 33
intlspices 295 950 80
chefbigshake 320 199 186
wineshield 323 761 209
idahoanfoods 358 733 328
hobartcorp 366 190 617
digitalmenubox 374 1012 440
fishbowljoe 376 482 594
back2scratch 392 313 1289
thermapen 428 477 480
heartlandhpy 433 398 673
peoplematterceo 466 362 1029
tsbrass 467 471 530
turtletransit 471 942 91
wasserstrom 480 676 871
oneida_ltd 507 273 162
gpprofessional 508 678 960
monkeydish 538 502 741
ssproducts 540 1999 397
shomack12 562 746 2980
rewardsnetwork 675 426 792
loveandquiches 691 1042 1048
socialgrub 755 1263 163
dietzandwatson 758 996 667
openmenu 786 1469 2237
fohbohgal 877 488 4488
laudividni 879 455 861
anchorhocking 881 885 2003
hospitalitysoc 937 1999 47
hospitalityrew 951 2000 30
graciousgourmet 1068 2003 1320
rubbermaidcomm 1186 325 190
fastcasual 1307 389 1132
safeeggs 1344 1676 1620
wileycooks 1405 921 822
calphalon 1561 1230 250
nrnmarketing 1796 697 503
flatoutbread 1926 1848 4778
viennabeef 2315 1023 2170
eatsauca 2343 113 75
fishbowlinc 2514 1892 364
fohboh 2721 1392 2767
herbalwater 3563 3290 1644
activeion 3653 3190 1144
communitycoffee 5626 2741 1539
wheresauca 7278 90 2736
elischeesecake 8404 8549 5598
emmaemail 8709 1516 2342
googleplaces 28159 26 924
yelp 43375 98 1847
livingsocial 49668 3611 8958
pepsi 68496 42227 3190
2. Identifying Exhibitors that were using the hashtag was conducted by reading the tweetstream. A few of the accounts were not “official” exhibitor accounts, but either identify themselves in their Twitter handle, bio or by tweeting that they were exhibiting for a company they work for and gave a booth number.
Chalkboarder 