I had the opportunity to speak to a class at Kendall College last night and it was a lot of fun and something that I really enjoy doing. My evening’s discussion was on the use of social media for events (the course is on meeting and event planning).
What I failed to mention to the crowd of bright, sharp, future meetings industry leaders (check out my post on what I think of the young breed here) and what I sometimes fail to mention here on the pages of my little corner of the internet, is that Social Media is not going to save your event.
If you have a crappy event, it is still a crappy event. No amount of lipstick is going to make that pig look like a million bucks.
In order to be the meeting or event planner that is amazingly successful, the core product; the actual event; must be 100% on target to succeed in organization and execution.
Social Media simply enables you to survive and thrive above all others.
Social Media can make a crappy event successful one time, maybe two but in the end, the fact that you are giving the people a big ol’ pile of manure is going to make it to the surface and your event will fail.
Before meeting and event planners design a fool proof social media plan, they should first design a fool proof event plan.