ASK THE EVENT PROS
ACCE called upon the expertise and insight of professionals within our events division to learn more about the trends and activities they are using within their organizations. For more responses go to www.acce.org/eventtrends.
What digital trends has your chamber begun using to promote and/or engage attendees at events?
PAIGE ANDERSON
Director of Events Nashville Chamber of Commerce
We have boosted our use of social media to promote our events. This move allows attendees to provide feedback and to interact with attendees during events.
MELISSA VANCE
President & CEO Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce
We started using a special hashtag for all our large events. For a couple of the events that engage a public crowd, including Millennials or Gen Z, we incorporate a Snapchat screen. Videos have begun to be a staple at our Annual Dinner and Awards Celebration as a more engaging and personal way to highlight winners without long, boring speeches from a podium.
JAIME HENNING
Director of Events and Corporate Relations Lincoln Chamber of Commerce
Our chamber has taken advantage of sponsored posts on social media as an especially effective way to engage members for our events. We create our events on Facebook and encourage members and ambassadors to mark “Attending” to increase event reach and engagement. We use the Facebook targeting tools to promote these events to each specific audience we want to reach. In addition, we ask our keynote speakers to film a quick video promoting the event for us to use on social media and these have been very popular among our audiences.
What event trend(s) should chambers be monitoring to ensure they provide value in an innovative and modern way?
SHAWNA BURTON
Vice President, Engagement & Organizational Advancement Greater Louisville Inc.
Help your members see the value of your event by providing contacts, content and purpose they can’t get somewhere else. Business owners can network just about anywhere and anytime these days. Chambers must engage on a deeper and more meaningful way. What better way to do that then to give event attendees an exclusive or a reason to be at your event? Chambers have to host events with purpose and that tie specifically to your mission.
EBONY AUSTIN
Events & Special Programs Director Greenville Chamber
Keep your events mission-centric and cross promote different focus areas at your events, like advocacy, economic competitiveness, young professionals, etc. Highlight chamber achievements and reiterate the chamber's vision at EVERY event.
ALEX FINNEY
Events Manager Boise Metro Chamber
Online surveys have become exceedingly popular in the chamber community and serve not just to solicit attendees feedback after events, but to ensure that we are continuously providing value for our members. Our chamber recently began issuing post-event surveys starting with one of our largest events of the year; our Leadership Conference. We sent this survey out the morning after the event with questions on logistics, topics and planning ideas for next year’s event. Thus far, the survey has a response rate of 50 percent.
COLLEEN SCHIPSI
Program Manager Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce
Video has become a key marketing piece for our chamber. Since video tells a story that a podium speaker cannot, we now give sponsors of our monthly Wake Up West Coast breakfast the opportunity to have a customized one to two-minute video (created by the chamber’s marketing team) shown at the event instead of having them speak at the podium. The videos add value to sponsorship beyond the event and assist in event promotions as we share them in emails and social media. They help us control time and messaging so that it looks best for the sponsor and for the chamber.
PAIGE ANDERSON
Director of Events Nashville Chamber of Commerce
By not being satisfied with the status quo, we’re constantly trying to evolve our events and solicit feedback from our attendees. This way, we’re able to naturally evolve our events to what our members want and expect. The chamber can no longer be simply known for providing networking opportunities; it must provide a unique value proposition and return on investment to retain members and investors.
What is one event that your organization has either redesigned or gotten rid of completely to stay relevant to your members and why?
SHAWNA BURTON
Vice President, Engagement & Organizational Advancement Greater Louisville Inc.
Participation and attendance declined at our small business awards luncheon, and, as a result, we almost scrapped the event entirely. Instead, we changed it to an evening cocktail event, created an awards celebration format (no lunch or keynote speaker) and made the finalists feel like stars. Three years later, we have added two award categories and have sold out every year. It’s a special night for a special group of people.
ALEX FINNEY
Events Manager Boise Metro Chamber
Two years ago, the Boise Metro Chamber staff met to review all of our events, deciding which ones were still serving our mission and which needed to be reconsidered. One event we discontinued was our Business Owners Success Series (BOSS) luncheons. The BOSS luncheons were too similar to our CEO Speaker Series. Dropping the BOSS luncheons freed up more staff time to focus on growing the CEO Speaker Series both in attendance and caliber of speakers.
COLLEEN SCHIPSI
Program Manager Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce
At the beginning of our 2017–2018 fiscal year, we made the bold move to completely rebrand our mainstay monthly breakfast networking event, formerly known as Early Bird Breakfast. In response to member feedback saying that the event was in need of a refresh, we delivered a completely new feel that included a new name—Wake Up West Coast. Event enhancements included a portable backdrop on stage to set the theme and ensure our brand appeared in photos and videos of the event, table top signage that further illustrates our core values, and upbeat music playing as guests arrive. A “Wake Up West Coast” video is shown to kick off each event with cameo appearances by our members and community leaders. Our members asked and we delivered.
