SIOP’s Annual Conference is the highlight of the year for members and the only time to get the attention of a large portion of them in person. Each conference boasts 4,000-5,000 attendees, about half of SIOP’s membership. This makes it the perfect place to educate, energize, and engage.
Each year, I have worked with SIOP’s Electronic Communications Committee to launch social media campaigns at the conference. We take advantage of the excitement of the location and the general leap in social media usage we see leading up to and during the conference to push for more interaction and social media usage, promote the conference, and teach members about our social media platforms.
In 2015, we played on the location in Philadelphia to create a “Digital Declaration” theme around our social media. This involved the creation of a Declaration sign that attendees could autograph at our Electronic Communications Booth in the exhibit hall. Member of the committee staffed the booth, where they took time to educate members about our social media presence and run contests where members could win various SIOP swag. We also created Digital Declaration pop-up banners and handouts to reinforce the message. I created all of the collateral materials in InDesign and Photoshop utilizing the conference logo that was created by our graphic designer.
Results: The result was a very active exhibit hall booth, which also helped spur traffic for paid booths in the hall, as well as a substantial surge in social media usage among attendees leading up to and at the conference along with increased promotion of the conference by members on their personal profiles.
Stephany Below 