We're really excited to announce the release of Zerista's Mobile Social Networking Appication for Events at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. What's more, not only are we releasing the application at MWC, but MWC is also using the application as the mobile version of myMWC, the event social networking portal.
The mobile application enables event managers to protect and extend their core event business by transforming attendees and sponsors into interactive mobile communities. Zerista’s mobile application provides clear benefits to the entire event ecosystem – attendees, sponsors, exhibitors, speakers and event organizers.
We’ve designed our application to be unique in its ease-of-use, the intelligence of its content-sharing and collaboration features, and the aggregation of public media in one integrated feed.
Zerista’s application provides an event feed that uniquely captures and communicates the buzz off what’s happening at the event -- in real-time. The immediate value of Zerista’s mobile application can be recognized in real-time on the show floor as attendees can read and post updates that can be shared with the event community and immediately to the broader social net.
Zerista’s event networking platform integrates web-based and mobile content, providing value through multiple touchpoints with attendees, from their desktops to their mobile handsets.
FEATURE SUMMARY
Zerista’s mobile application provides access to the My MWC portal and its features, including:
• Smart real-time mobile feed that combines filtered public social media channel with private event follower channel, with dual-publishing options
• Personalized feed that provides real-time event updates and check ins from personal contacts at the event
• Event organizer feed to provide real-time updates on schedule changes and other event-wide announcements
• Personalized messaging and networking tools
• Advanced attendee and exhibitor search
• Personalized schedule builder with public events and personal meetings
• Integration with and aggregation of popular social tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube
Many conference managers are interested in adding a virtual event to their current conference. Zerista has worked with many conference organizers to make this vision a reality. We provide an easy process that enables conferences efficiently and cost-effectively to extend their events.
The process involves three key steps:
1. Capture and digitize your conference content. Working with the conference AV company, it is relatively easy to record and digitize some or parts of your conference.
2. Publish the content (audio, video, slides ... or a combination thereof) to your servers/hosting provider. This can be a live streaming feed (if you want to provide live access) or an archived upload time-delayed during or right after your show.
3. Embed the content address within the Zerista framework. Zerista manages the virtual attendee registration, access control, and provides for a two-way communication channel. In addition, virtual attendees have access to network/chat with exhibitors, attendees, and speakers.
Example Embedded Video Feed:
Example Embedded Presentation with Synchronized Audio Feed:
We've been working on an exciting project with the Great American Beer Festival 2009. We've launched an event networking site that enables attendees and breweries to connect in a unique way before, during and after the event.
"Zerista provides our core stakeholders - breweries and attendees - another great way to get excited about the GABF with a custom-branded networking enviiornment designed with event-specific features."
-Cindy Jones, Sales & Marketing Director of the Brewers Association
What's in it for breweries exhibit? On the GABF event networking site, breweries can:
- Create a brewery profile to be shared with attendees
- Enable attendees to follow a brewery on a personalized list
- Share information about their brewery and beers they've entered at the festival
- Share a YouTube welcome message with attendees
- Enable attendees to send messages to their brewery
- Schedule meetings at their booth with attendees
- Breweries that update their profiles gain additional promotion opportunities
What's in it for GABF attendees? On the GABF event networking site, attendees can:
- Create a personal list of breweries they'd like to visit
- Network with fellow attendees and brewers
- Share a personal profile with other attendees
- Send messages and set up meetings
- Browse an interactive online festival map
- Participate in online conversations about GABF
- Stay tuned to the buzz of what's happening at GABF
"The Zerista application is the perfect dashboard for managing conference meetings, messages, while also prospecting......in the past, I would go to a meeting thinking I'm missing something. With your tool I feel like my prep time is well spent and assured I'm not missing a beat. Well done! Thanks again for the tool."-Exhibitor
“Just a note to say how much I am enjoying using Zerista. Thanks for providing this great tool! “ -Attendee
“Great tool. Really enjoying it!” -Attendee
As highlighted by the user quotes above, the Zerista application had a significant impact on the event experience for attendees and exhibitors. The event organizer's intent was to significantly improve the event ROI for attendees and exhibitors. Zerista played a key piece in achieving this objective.
Customer Needs:
• Increase meetings between attendees and exhibitors
• Increase networking between attendees
• Decrease the planning effort for attendees
Solution:
The Zerista team worked closely with the event producer to deliver a custom Social Event Site that delivered the following key features:
• Attendee directory and integrated networking tools
• Exhibitor directory and integrated networking tools
• 1:1 meeting scheduler
• Real-time event feed with aggregated social media content (youtube, flickr, etc.)
Return-on-Investment (ROI):
The solution generated a significant ROI that substantially exceeded expectations:
• More than 14,000 messages, meetings and contacts created
• More than 800 1:1 meetings scheduled
• Roughly 80% of exhibitors and 50% of attendees used the application
• Exhibitors scheduled 40% to 80% more meetings due to Zerista
Feel free to contact us with questions or comments.
"The finished product looks fantastic, and the best part is people are already using it. We're really excited and hope that this rubs off on the membership and makes the event that much better." -Conference & Trade Show Organizer
We recently completed a successful project for a leading financial services conference and trade show. Given the turmoil in the financial services industry and resulting cutbacks in event attendance at financial services events, this client was focused on differentiating their event vs. competing events. Since attendees and exhibitors are reducing the number of events they attend, this client wanted to make sure that their event stands out and, as a result, remains the preferred event within their industry niche for attendees and exhibitors.
The client perceived the use of social networking as a key point for differentiation. This client took a multi-platform strategy that includes both general purpose social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) and event-specific social networks (Zerista). They decided to use Zerista to meet a significant functionality gap within the general purpose platforms: in-depth event-specific social networking and scheduling functionality.
Key functionality provided by Zerista included the capabilities to:
Search a complete attendee directory
Schedule 1:1 meetings with other attendees
See who else is attending specific sessions, keynotes, and workshops
Build and export a personalized schedule and itinerary
The solution had a significant impact on the conference experience:
More than 3,000 messages, contacts, and meetings were created within the solution
More than 475 attendees created event-specific profiles to share with other attendees
Over the last 12 months, Twitter usage has accelerated at conferences, trade shows and other large events. Twitter, however, is starting to become a victim of its own popularity. With so many attendees using #event tags, the volume of twittering is start to overload attendees undermining its utility as a real-time communication platform. This is exactly what happened at SXSW this year. This points to a more general content organization and collaboration problem that needs to be solved. Stay tuned for more from Zerista on this!
In this economic enviornment, many are questioning the value of business conferences and tradeshows. In times like these, it is worthwhile to keep in mind that in-person meetings provide unique networking, informational and educational value. Bob Phibbs does a great job of summarizing some of the most important - and often-overlooked - reasons in 10 Reasons to Have That Conference and Use a Professional Speaker.
Bob's #1 reason - community - really resonates with us. By extending the conference community online before, during and after an event, we help the community form stronger and longer lasting ties.
We recently worked with an academic association on their annual conference. One of the unique aspects of this conference was its international audience: more than 50% of the attendees were from outside of the United States. The conference attracted more than 1,000 attendees from over 30 countries, with significant representation from Europe, India, and China.
Given this global audience and the fact that our software is currently English-only, we were curious to see how well our software tools would be adopted. We shouldn't have been. In fact, we saw that international adoption was the key driver of activity within the community. Many of the most active users were from around the world. Within less than 48 hours, close to 20% of international attendees were already activety using the system.
There's a more general observiation here. For conferences with geographically dispersed audiences, web-based social event tools like Zerista's add a significant amount of value to attendees.
We recently completed a project for a leading clean alternative conference. The event organizer's key goals were increasing attendee loyalty and repeat attendance. We helped the organizer achieve these goals by enabling each attendee to get more value - both networking and informational value - from attending the conference. The Zerista software tools extended the event online, enabling each attendee to be more productive onsite.
The results were highly positive:
“Zerista was an excellent resource for our conference attendees. They could find out where things were happening, connect with each other before they'd even met, and start discussions about the conference proceedings in real time. It was an online destination that boosted the value of our conference far more than our static website ever did before.” -Event Organizer
“I really liked being able to see who else is attending the conference. I set up 3 meetings via the system – these were meetings that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have happened.” -Attendee
