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Trade Show Exhibits and Events Promotion Using Instagram

Using Instagram to Promote Traded shows

Putting Instagram To Work In Your Trade Show Marketing Efforts

What’s So Great About Instagram?

Promotion using Instagram during trade shows has shown to be effective in gaining brand exposure. Instagram stands out from other popular social media in several ways that make it critically important to businesses. Although the platform is driven by visuals, it also allows users to draft lengthy text (unlike Twitter).

Instagram is more favorable toward organic propagation than Facebook. This means that when an Instagram user posts, his connections will very likely see that post; the distribution isn’t throttled like it is on Facebook. Possibly the most attractive feature of Instagram, from a marketing standpoint, is their simple and reliable cross-posting interface. Many Instagrammers have their accounts interlinked, so if they post about your company on Instagram, that post is automatically shared to their FacebookTwitter, and other social media. Find out how these trade show social media ideas for Instagram can boost your marketing efforts.

Help Yourself To Some Free Exposure

Using hashtags is a critical matter when you’re marketing on social media. In addition to your brand and product hashtags, be sure to include the tags for the events your promoting. Most events have at least two hashtags, so be sure you do some homework to find the most popular ones. The trade show you’re attending is probably going to have a much larger social media following than your company. By including their tags, your posts, brand, and tags will gain much broader exposure. Also look for sub-tags for certain aspects of the event: For example #EventNamePanels or #EventNameLaunches.

Warm Up The Crowd

Use Instagram to create posts about the events and opportunities your company is offering at the show. Include things like panel appearances by your team; product launches or previews; special activities at your booth, or a reception; product demos or guest appearances; and show specials you’ll be offering. Make sure every post includes a clear, large image (if your image is too small it will look terrible on Instagram) and be sure to schedule your posts so they’re evenly distributed throughout each day. Dumping a pile of posts onto your account all at once annoys followers by filling up their feed, which lessens the effectiveness of each post.

Give Them A Reason To Post

Your trade show exhibit needs to include something people will want to post about. That may sound daunting and expensive, but it doesn’t need to be. You’ve probably seen posts about the 10-story Ferris wheel the USA Network installed at South-by-SouthWest this year, but you don’t need to go to that length. One exhibitor at a Utah trade show placed a single banner stand with a photograph of a huge crocodile and a hashtag on it. So many people lined up to take a picture with that croc that they clogged the entire aisle. People are surprisingly willing to do fun and silly things for a social media photo op, even – or maybe especially – at a trade show.

Photo scavenger hunts are quite popular on Instagram. You can set one up at a trade show by creating a set of custom banners, and placing the banner stands throughout the show venue. Another way to benefit from what Instagrammers already like to do is to print banners with funny, snarky, or philosophical sayings and simple graphics on them: A giant meme. Do a good job creating these and people will post it until it actually is a meme, and it will be shared endlessly, along with your logo.