#LDI2015

Have you ever been to a convention in Las Vegas?  I haven’t either.  But with Tweets and online articles, Live Design International presents enough photos and information to make you want to go next year!

Though the actual event took place for only a week, planning for this event is year long.  Information abounds on their website for exhibitors and attendees alike.  Social media buttons encourage you to start engaging with the convention from the time you hear about their website through to your attendance and beyond.  According to their website, “Live Design International is the leading trade show and and conference for live design professionals from all around the globe”.  88 countries, 350 companies and 10,000 attendees pool their creative and technical expertise in one place of awesomeness.  Some of their target attendees work in theaters, clubs, concert venues, churches and theme parks.  This conference is for professional and volunteers that are able to take experiences to the next level through state of the art audio and visual technology.  LDI kept their own brand consistent with their LDI logo.

The above logo served as the profile picture for both their Twitter and Facebook pages.  Of the two, the most regular updates I received were via Twitter.  And the events most promoted (that caught my attention) were the cocktail hours, breakfasts, Neal Preston photography exhibit and discounts for Cirque du Soleil. While, they’re posting content with relevant links, but don’t seem to be getting any retweets or favorites.  But if their goals is to bring you back to product sites where you can learn more than 140 characters of information, then they are achieving that.

I’m slightly disappointed that I would have missed the LDI Booth Crawl and Scavenger Hunt.  With so many Twitter notifications popping up on my phone, I tuned them out after a few days, and didn’t go back to carefully read them all.  Had I been in attendance, I’m sure I would have built that into my schedule on their app.

With this application, LDI 2015 built an extremely comprehensive, portable information kiosk that builds in easily to proximity marketing.  In one place, that you won’t misplace, you can access which events you are scheduled to attend, and where they are located.  I think the coolest feature, was if you plugged in which kiosk you were closest to, the app could help you figure out where you were in convention center.  An ocean of convention booths can cause participants to become turned around and lost.  The combination of the app, telling you exactly were in the convention you were, partnered with Tweets advertising booth numbers, I’m sure made the event easier to navigate.

Twitter was also used to promote various new products, vendors and sponsors.  The standardized tweets would include the #LDI2015 as well as a link to more information.  Their tweets are very industry specific, as their abbreviations are intended for their convention audience.  On my mobile phone, as you can see in the tweets below, LDI is not very captivating.  Standard black and blue, with the brand consistent hashtag. Their desktop Twitter page is much more colorful and exciting.

When planning tweets, take into account all the different formats that may display your tweets.

One thing I thought was missing from their social media effort was an Instagram account.  If you look at recent posts with #LDI2015 on Instagram, it is related to this Las Vegas conference.  There were even some behind the scenes photos of lighting rigs being set up.  If you scroll too far, #LDI2015 turns into a sorority hashtag, then a leadership conference.  Recent Instagram users were incorporating #LDI2015 into their posts, along with their booth numbers so that followers could find them easily in real life.   In the last week of the conference, approximately 450 Instagram posts were added to the #LDI2015

Another social media platform that left room for improvement was the Live Design Pinterest page. I found the Pinterest page through the LDI link to the LiveDesignonline.com site.

The description of the page mentions the Las Vegas trade show and Live Design Master Classes, but doesn’t provide a link to either directly.  The only link directs you back to the online magazine website you came from.

LDI is in their 28th year.  With such a huge following from their professional community, those in the know, know to go to LDI.  This annual event may not need to generate new attendees, simply entertain, help and keep happy those they already as a loyal audience.  With their mobile app, and up to date tweets, they have enough lines of communication to analyze what worked and what didn’t without overextending themselves.

Maybe I’ll make the journey to Las Vegas next year, and see how applicable their social media information is to an attendee.