Social Media Meeting Trends for 2018

Recently, Successful Meetings sent a survey out to our readership asking them to tell us about their usage of social media at events. Of the respondents, 38 percent were corporate planners, 37 percent were association planners and 25 percent were third party or independent planners. Of that pool, 72 percent said they use event apps for some or all of their events. Here's what else they had to say.

This year organizations will include social media activities in:
Some events: 52%
All events: 40%
No events: 8%

Compared to last year, the number of your events including social media activities have:    
Increased: 61%
Remained the same: 35%
Decreased: 4%

In 2018 planners use event apps in:
Some events: 55%
No events: 28%
All events: 17%

The most common social media platforms used at events:
Facebook: 78%
Twitter: 75%
LinkedIn: 53%
Instagram: 41%
YouTube: 27%
Snap Chat: 9%
Pinterest: 7%

The most common uses of social media at events:
Pre-event promotion: 83%
Attendee engagement at the event: 65%
Pre-event networking: 47%
Attendee networking during the event: 46%
Attendee networking pre/post event: 42%
Build community with attendees over multiple events: 39%
Capturing survey feedback at the event: 30%
Interaction with speakers during educational sessions: 20%

The biggest challenges in integrating social media into events:
Getting attendees to use social media as part of the event experience: 59%
Figuring out how to use social media to enhance the event experience: 45%
Getting clients to integrate social media into the event experience: 36%
Getting enough Wi-Fi bandwidth at the hotel: 31%
Integrating social media into the promotional strategies of our events: 27%
Getting upper management to understand the importance of social media: 23%
Getting speakers to promote their sessions: 22%
Monitoring the use of social media at the event to censor impropriety: 20%
Adhering to clients' privacy guidelines: 11%

Organizations that have a social media strategy for meetings and events:
We have an informal strategy: 42%
No, we don't have a strategy: 35%
We have a written strategy: 23%

Most common elements of social media strategies for meetings:
What the content may/may not include: 45%
Who is authorized to post meeting-related content on social media sites: 44%
We do not have such a strategy: 42%
Pre-approval process for social media communications: 36%
Process for answering comments/questions about the meeting or event: 33%
Punitive actions that may result from improper use of social media: 11%

Source:  SuccessfulMeetings.com