Stephanie Corbin

Twitterverse Goes to TSW Fastest 50

If you were at Tradeshow Fastest 50 this past weekend and had Twitter, you were privy to a whole other conservation happening.

I have four Twitter accounts on my phone: my personal Twitter (I’ll give it to you if you ask, but don’t judge me), my work Twitter @stephaniecorbin, our magazine Twitter @TSWNews and our TSW Fastest 50 Twitter @TSWFastest50. Because I noticed some tweets on the other sites, I didn’t want to risk two people tweeting, so I just stuck to @stephaniecorbin.

We used the hashtag #tswf50 to trend the event. From what I saw, the executive-level conference session on Saturday got the most attention on Twitter, apart from the gala dinner later that night when the awards were announced.

But what I enjoyed the most was the ability to participate in a conversation during the conference portion (or, watch it in some ways) without disturbing those on stage. During the State of the Industry Panel with TSW’s Michael Hughes, this conversation took place:

• “stepnold: Virtual Tradeshows? Hughes answer vague – isn't point of conducting research? Help us define what is VTs? What industry is doing? #tswf50”

• “melissaooi: Sick of the term "virtual tradeshow". Gets wheeled out every recession! Everyone needs to have good content on sites! #tswf50”

• “stepnold: Good point @melissaooi. Speak up. It is about a convergence of new solutions and web assets – not rehashing past methods. #tswf50”

I was surprised by just how many people were using Twitter at the event. Plus, I noticed yesterday once we got back that all three of the big winners from TSW Fastest 50 have Twitter accounts (@AWEA, @Official_PAX and @ABCKidsExpo).

I guess this highlights one of the things that I took away from a conversation I had with Kenji Haroutunian, group show director of Outdoor Retailer and Fly-Fishing Retailer, Saturday night after the gala. He said he knew the shows needed to be using social media tools like Twitter, even if he wasn’t sure how they would monetize it.

I guess our event really highlights that. If we weren’t tweeting, we wouldn’t even be part of the conversation at our own event. That’s the last thing someone would want.

Posted by Stephanie Corbin on November 17, 2009 | Comments (0)