Last week was the Illinois Governor’s Conference on Tourism and even if you weren’t attending in person, you could have attended virtually by following the #ilgc hashtag. 
Now if you’re thinking “No one at my conference will be tweeting” then you’re way off. Here are some quick stats from the Illinois Governor’s Conference (ILGC):
- Number of tweets: there were 252 #ilgc tweets from March 13-19.
- Tweet reach: a total of 387,195 twitter accounts were exposed to the #ilgc hashtag
- Contributors: there were 59 contributors and not all of them were attending ILGC. Tourism professionals such as Vicky Soderberg, Theresa Overby and Troy Thompson also participated via the #ilgc hashtag.
So how can you make your conference social?
- Create a branded twitter hashtag. If this is new to you, check out my post explaining how to create a hashtag for your event.
- Read the January 6 #tourismchat transcript and see how others are using social media to promote events.
- Educate and inform your attendees on your social media efforts. It can be basic like this How to be “social” at ILGC post.
- Track your efforts. Save your twitter transcript and use Facebook’s Insights to see how successful you were.
It’s best to start this process months in advance but you will still have some success if you only have a few weeks. Jump in with both feet!
Vicky Soderberg
Anne Hornyak
Niki
Anne Hornyak