Business meetings: how to use social media in your favor

After a matchmaking event, almost everyone does the same thing with the card they received: they look the company up online. What that person finds decides whether the conversation continues or dies there.

That is why social media matters at a business meeting. Not as a stage, but as verification. This article separates what to do before, during and after the event.

Before: preparing the ground

Sort the profile out in advance. Whoever checks you looks at three things: whether the company is active, whether what it does is clear, and whether there is proof of work. A profile that has sat still for eight months conveys exactly the wrong message.

Make explicit what you do. The profile description has to answer "what do you do and for whom" in one line. A catchy phrase helps nobody.

Post before the event. Say that you are going. That tends to produce two or three conversations arranged before you arrive, and it breaks the ice at the table.

Put the profile on your card. But only the profile where you actually post. A card with four networks, three of them abandoned, is worse than a card with none.

During: the event is a source of content, within limits

Two rules that avoid embarrassment:

• Ask permission before photographing someone. Not every participant wants to appear, and some have professional reasons for that.
• Do not post during your turn at the table. Anyone holding a phone while the others speak is noticed, and not for the right reason.

What works well: a wide photo of the room, with the organization's permission, and a comment about what you learned. Posting what you learned produces more return than posting that you were there.

After: where social media actually works

This is the moment that decides the outcome, and it is the most wasted.

In the first 48 hours, connect with the people you spoke to. Send a short message alongside, citing something specific from the conversation. An invitation with no message is ignored.

In the first week, post something useful related to what you heard at the event. If three companies mentioned the same problem, write about it. Whoever was there recognizes it and replies.

In the first month, keep a regular presence. The contact you made at the event needs to see you exist more than once in order to remember you when the problem appears.

The full follow-up script is in tips for strengthening relationships after the event.

For whoever organizes the event

Social media is the cheapest recruitment channel and the one organizers use worst. Three corrections that change the outcome:

Announce the concrete, not the feeling. "High-level networking" does not sell because it means nothing. "An afternoon of business conversations with companies from the region's construction sector" sells, because it can be verified.

Publish who has already confirmed. Publishing the confirmed companies raises registration and raises actual attendance, because whoever saw an interesting name confirms for real.

Publish the results afterwards. Attendance, conversations held and the accounts collected on the day are the material that sells the next edition. Without a record, you go back to selling on rhetoric.

See how to promote a business meeting and marketing your event to the right audience.

Common mistakes

• A pretty, empty profile. Design without content does not survive verification.
• Posting only when there is an event. Appearing twice a year does not build recognition.
• Automating the connection message. A generic message after an in-person conversation is worse than no message.
• Tagging everyone in a photo. It irritates more than it helps.
• Selling directly in the first message. A contact you have just made is not a prospecting list.
• Relying on the network alone. Registrations for a matchmaking event usually come from direct contact. Advertising brings the curious; the telephone brings the buyer.

What to measure

If you want to know whether social media is helping, measure three things after every event:

• how many people from the event started following you;
• how many replied to your follow-up message;
• how many commercial conversations started through that channel within 90 days.

The third number is the only one that matters. A follower who never becomes a conversation is a vanity metric.

The context no campaign delivers

It is worth remembering why a matchmaking event is a good source of qualified contacts. In one afternoon, each participant talks to a lot of new people, all of them with a name, a company and a subject discussed. No social media campaign delivers qualified contacts with that level of context for the cost of a ticket.

Social media does not replace that. It only ensures that, when those people look you up, they find something that confirms the good impression from the table.

Continue with 10 tips for efficient networking, business matchmaking and digital networking and standing out at business events.