One of the touchpoints where attendees could tap their badges to post content to social media sites on behalf of Social Media Week London. (Photo by Chinwag/KimCas)
As Social Media Week London (SMW London) wrapped up in London last month, event organizers were still benefiting from the hundreds of attendees who shared about their experiences at the event on social media. However, it wasn’t always the attendees themselves physically posting those updates.
Excelerated Applications partnered with the Sept. 23-27 event to add a new functionality to SMW London’s VIP Pass option. The company embedded RFID chips into the passes that allowed attendees to share exclusive content on their social media pages, check in to venues, and request information from presenters and sponsors.
Of the 15,000 total attendees, about 2,000 purchased the £99 ($158) VIP Pass for the weeklong event. Around 25 percent of those with the VIP Pass opted to link their Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts to the pass, which would then update posts through Excelerated Applications’ social sharing platform UpD8r.
“Linking the passes to social media was done through preevent communication and on-site through a self-registration port,” said Excelerated Applications Co-Founder Richard Smith.
Although the passes worked to track which sessions people attended, Chinwag was interested in the social reach.
“We were really interested in the social sharing functionality of the chips to share to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter,” said Fleur Fine Hosken, who’s in charge of Communications, Social & Media Partnerships at Chinwag.
The sharing functionality drew a lot of eyeballs, with the total reach of the around 200 VIP Pass users' posts landing at 577,000 people across the three social networks.
For SMW London delving into the technology was mostly about building the reach of the event, although the VIP Pass holders also serve as good leads.
“All of the pass holders have been contacted by us, and presenters and sponsors have messaged their session attendees,” added Hosken.
Each VIP Pass for SMW London came complete with an embedded RFID chip and complimentary rubber duck. (Photo by Chinwag/Artur Ring)
Excelerated Applications focuses on Near Field Communications (NFC) technology when it comes to their RFID products. Instead of a machine being able to scan an attendee’s badge from a few feet away, the NFC technology means that a user would physically need to tap their pass against one of the 15 touchpoints used at SMW London.
Smith said that the idea to keep the system’s mechanics based on touch came from the social networks themselves.
“Users are used to consuming content digitally where if they see something they enjoy they click a share button at the bottom,” said Smith. “We’ve created a ‘real world share button,’ of sorts.”
Attendees are presented with the touchpoints after seeing a presentation or session and if they enjoyed it, they’re encouraged to tap their badge to the touchpoint, creating a post on their linked social networks about the presentation. Checking in at any of the touchpoints was entirely voluntary and if an attendee chose not to tap their badge against a touchpoint, nothing would be posted on their social media feeds.
Event organizer Chinwag originally approached Excelerated Applications about running a master class about the RFID technology during SMW London. The initial meeting led to a business transaction, with Excelerated Applications providing the RFID technology in exchange for a combination of sponsorship and money.
The cost for RFID passes linked with UpD8r varies, with the price fluctuating depending on the number of people, the software license, and how personalized the experience is. More RFID tags and touchpoints means higher costs for hardware.
Smith said that a conference for around 1,000 people would cost about $5,000-$6,000.
Having unique and personalized content is important so that attendees don’t feel like they’re being used purely for advertising the event. The Oct. 9-12 New York Comic Con event, which did not use Excelerated Applications, actually shut down the service that automatically posted to attendees' social media pages after receiving backlash from people on social sites who didn’t realize the opt-in function of linking social networks to badges would allow the event to post on their behalf.
New York Comic Con released a statement after shutting down the service Oct. 10 that read in part: “As you may have seen yesterday, there were some posts to Twitter and Facebook issued by New York Comic Con on behalf of attendees after RFID badges were registered. This was an opt-in function after signing in, but we were probably too enthusiastic in our messaging and eagerness to spread the good word about NYCC.”
Organizers of New York Comic Con could not be reached for further comment.
Smith opined that there’s a fine line regarding what is socially acceptable for events to post on social media. In addition to transparency about the opt-in feature, he said that the content itself was most important.
“If you treat it purely as a sales mechanism it could become quite spamy, as you saw with NYCC,” said Smith. “Instead, we focus on sharing content that the user couldn’t otherwise share themselves.”
One example at SMW London involved another one of the event’s sponsors, Nokia. At various points throughout the VIP area, attendees were able to have their photos taken with the new 41-megapixel camera on the Nokia Lumia phone. The only way the attendee could then share the photo was through Excelerated Applications UpD8r.
The next Social Media Week, which takes place concurrently at more than a dozen cities worldwide, will be Feb. 17-21.
Interviewed for this story: Fleur Fine Hosken, +44 (0)20 7183 2923; Richard Smith, +44 (0)845 625 0149