“See opportunity where others see obstacles” professed Bert Jacobs’ (of Life is Good) to visionaries and investors at the MassChallenge Award on Monday, October 24, 2011. Through
the power of social media, his inspiring speech and quote reached over half a million people connected to entrepreneurs across the country.
A table by the side entrance to the Grand Ballroom at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center stood out from the crowd. Like all tables, the glasses and plates of food were being attended to but the Swarsovski crystal decorations were replaced by laptops, iPads, and an assortment of smartphones and cables. This table was managed by BostonTweetUp and hosted the Social Media Command Center bustling with information, tweets, check-ins and updates. Together with the participants and attendees, BostonTweetUp ensured the start-up community beyond the ballroom’s walls was kept up to speed with the happenings, speeches and winners.
And did we ever: initial stats reveal the following:
- 80% of attendees tweeted about the event (803 contributors out of 1000 attendees)
- 2,031 tweets on Monday – 9 tweets per minute when awards were given out (8:00 PM)
- MassChallenge’s Marketing Coordinator, Jermy Bersin (@jbersin) became the Mayor of Mass Challenge Awards on Foursquare
- 5 million impressions
To translate this into dollars and returns, social media provided the finalists, sponsors and organizers with far more reach and significantly less costs than traditional advertising campaigns. Put simply, finalists, winners and non-winners alike are now equally exposed to the general public and investors just by being associated with the Awards. They are more recognizable today than they were 24 hrs before the event took place. Every picture tweeted (and retweeted) of winners bore the sponsor’s logo which provided sponsors with a very tangible measure of brand awareness via MC Awards.
Look for the BostonTweetUp Social Media Command Center at other events!
Contact us if you want to learn how to best leverage Social Media for your events.
More information:
- Mass Challenge
- Social: MassChallenge, Hashtag: #mcawards
- Speaker: Bert Jacobs of Life is Good
- Venue: Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
