Posted by John
Michael J. Shapiro, February 10, 2010
Zerista, a provider of event networking software, was selected to create a customized event and mobile social networking solution for the GSMA's 2010 Mobile World Congress, a mammoth event for the mobile industry to be held Feb. 15-18 in Barcelona, Spain. Read the entire article here ...
Posted by John
We recently launched our largest event social network to date. The network is for the roughly 50,000 attendee and 1,300 exhibitor Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We're really excited to provide our platform to the largest community of mobile technology and innovations professionals in the world.
“Mobile World Congress attendees and exhibitors recognized the value of Zerista immediately. That’s fantastic validation of the desire for an event-specific, open social network that facilitates a greater flow of content and communication among attendees and exhibitors. With My MWC, attendees and exhibitors alike have a central place to find information and make Mobile World Congress into a very individual and personalized experience.”
- Steve Russ, VP of Marketing
The event social network -- called My MWC -- matches the event’s unique personality and enriches both the physical and virtual aspects of the show for everyone. My MWC maximizes the networking experience for attendees and exhibitors, which ultimately helps increase their satisfaction, customer loyalty, repeat attendance, and revenue.
SOLUTION SUMMARY:
FEATURE SUMMARY:
Zerista’s platform delivers event-specific functionality that general-purpose social networks cannot provide, and it provides a balance of features that bring value to a number of constituencies, including attendees, exhibitors and event organizers.
Attendees:
Exhibitors & Sponsors:
Event Organizers:
The web-based My MWC portal includes features such as:
For a presentation with screen shots click here.
SCREEN SHOTS:
My MWC Homepage:
Attendee Directory with Advanced Search and Social Profiles
Example Attendee Profile:
Example Attendee Twitter and Blog Aggregation:
Example Exhibitor/Sponsor Profile (with Social Media assets embedded)
Exhibit Hall Mapping (XML feed from CAD System)
Schedule Builder - Multiple Agendas (Main Agenda, Seminars, App Planet Agendas)
Posted by John
"Zerista provides our critical stakeholders - attendees and exhibitors - another great reason to attend our event. Networking is a core part of our event, and the event networking site enables better networking before, during and after the event. We've seen amazing usage of the solution for weeks - hundreds of attendees are using the site. What's more, the attendee feedback has been really positive." -Trade Show Organizer
As companies scrutizines their marketing spend across channels, they are asking for higher returns from their event marketing budgets. As a result, many of the show organizers that we work with are looking for new ways to increase the marketing ROI of their sponsors and exhibitors. Given that attendance at many shows is down, increasing the quality and quantity of exhibitor leads is a true challenge. We've been working with our customers to address this critical challenge. Attendee-to-exhibitor matchmaking is one of the keys to increasing targeted introductions and conversations. Exhibitor lead quality and quantity both increase. Equally important, attendee satisfaction goes up as well due to the more targeted nature of the conversations. It's a win-win formula.
Posted by John
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
GABF Event Networking Site Homepage:
Example GABF Exhibitor Profile:
Example Conversation Thread:
Posted by John
We recently completed a fun project working with a leading urban design conference in Denver. The Conference for the New Urbanism (CNU) is the nation's leading forum dedicated to advancing urbanism and promoting alternatives to sprawl.
We were excited to work on this project - not only because we support the general new urbanist principles, but also because we live and work in the types of communities that new urbanism seeks to encourage.
As background, New Urbanism is an urban design and development movement dedicated to implementing community-oriented principles of traditional town and city planning in contrast to the prevailing system of formless sprawl. New Urbanist developments are walkable, provide a diverse range of housing options, encourage a rich mix of uses, and provide welcoming public spaces as detailed in the Charter of the New Urbanism.
The conference attracts more than 1,000 attendees from around the world who particiapte in several hundred planned activities throughout the week.
Some of the key challgenges faced by the conference organizer:
• Strengthen relationships between core stakeholders - attendees, speakers and exhibitors
• Increase networking between attendees, speakers and exhibitors
• Increase productivity at the conference
The solution included the following key components:
• Attendee, speaker and exhibitor directories with detailed info on all key stakeholders
• Online conversations for attendees, speakers and exhibitors
• Personalized scheduling tools with ability to export MS Outlook, iCal and other calendar aps
The solution generated a significant ROI:
• 27% average increase in event networking due to Zerista (based on survey data)
• 10% average increase in overall event productivity due to Zerista (based on survey data)
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free comment below.
Posted by John
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.
Posted by John
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:
The solution had a significant impact on the conference experience:
To read more about this case study, please click here: Financial Services Case Study.
Posted by John
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.
Posted by John
One of the more entertaining projects that we've worked on recently is the Great American Beer Festival. The Beer Festival is an annual classic each fall in Denver and is rated as one of the 1,000 places to see before you die. Each year upwards of 40,000 attendees and 400 exhibiting brewers get together to sample the best beers in the country. We worked with the event orgnizer to provide online tools to make it easier for attendees to find brewers before and during the event.
One of the more challenging aspects of the project was to provide a user-friendly venue map interface that enabled attendees to quickly search and find exhibitors from within one browser window. 10,000s of attendees used the site and the project was viewed as highly successful. In the words of the event organizer:
"With Zerista, we were able to offer our 40,000+ attendees an easier way to plan and map out their event experience at the Great American Beer Festival. Our requirements included an interactive convention hall map that showed the location of more than 400 exhibitors and 50 events. Zerista rapidly delivered an intuitive, easy-to-use solution to a rather challenging mapping project. The Zerista team was great to work ith, and we're looking forward to working together again in the future.
Here's a screenshot of what we provided:
