For many food and beverage brands, summer means touring the tradeshow loop: Natural Products Expo East, Sweets and Snacks Expo, PMA Fresh Summit, and many more.
Summer Fancy Food Show in NYC is just around the corner, starting June 28th and ending June 30th. In the midst of passing out samples, talking with potential customers, visiting vendor booths, and networking, it’s easy to forget about your social media presence. But spending just a few minutes a day organizing and promoting your accounts is a great way to grab the attention of a larger audience, ramp up booth traffic, and connect with fans who aren’t at the show.
Follow these do’s and don’ts to make sure your social media presence at Summer Fancy Food Show is on point:
DO: sweep your social media accounts 1 month before the show. Make sure your profile photos and descriptions are up to date, your links work, and that your accounts are clean and appealing.
DO: begin posting about the trade show before the show begins (we advise starting 1 week prior to the show).
DO: post multiple times/day at the show from different social media accounts: Instagram (3 posts/day), Twitter (up to 15/day), and Facebook (1x/day) will be the most active platforms at SFFS.
DON’T: automate your posts so that one post blasts out to all your platforms at once. Each social media platform caters to a different audience, has a different voice, and different best times of day to post. Craft each post carefully depending on the platform you use.
DO: use the correct expo hashtags & tag relevant people in every post! Official show hashtag is: #SFFS15
Summer Fancy Food Expo is hosted by: @craftcarejoy
DO: use other relevant hashtags in your post, such as: #NYFoodies, #specialtyfood, #NYC, #organic, etc.
DON’T: overdo it on the hashtags. Limit to 1-4/post
DO: Create a contest or giveaway to attract more customers to your booth.
DON’T: make the contest too challenging. There’s a lot going on at tradeshows, so make it easy for followers to enter. Try asking them to retweet to enter or simply like a Facebook post.
DO: Include a photo or graphic with each of your posts. Tweets with photos get twice the engagement than those without. If you tweet your booth number, include a photo of your booth beneath it.
DON’T: post blurry or dark photos! Make sure you have great light, smiling faces, and well-placed products.
DO: Include short video clips! Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. Post videos to Instagram (15 seconds or less), Twitter (six second Vine videos), or Facebook (longer videos accepted, but shorter still preferable.)
DO: Make a 30 second video of yourself before the show explaining who you are and why people should visit your booth. Post to YouTube and share the link to all your social media channels.
DON’T: simply post about your product and your booth nonstop. Give shout-outs to other great companies or bloggers you run into, delicious food you sampled, or snippets of NYC life, like a photo of the skyline from your hotel room.
DON’T: stop after the show! Go through the business cards you collected and ask to connect with those people on LinkedIn. Follow influential bloggers or tradeshow speakers on twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
DO: turn your tradeshow experience into a blog. Write about your most frequently asked questions, and then share that link on social media.
