Industry conferences are more than just networking opportunities. When senior leaders attend, they present communications teams with a valuable opportunity to strengthen their organization’s reputation, elevate its visibility, build relationships with key journalists and influencers, and gather insights that can inform future communications strategies.
But maximizing the value of a conference requires more than just showing up, attending a panel, and posting a LinkedIn photo afterward. With the right strategy, a single conference commitment can become the starting point for a broader marketing campaign. The following tactics, spanning before, during, and after an industry conference, can ensure communications teams maximize the overall impact and ROI of their executive’s participation:
Pre-Event: Building Momentum
- Social Media – As with any communications strategy in today’s digital landscape, it’s key for executives to announce their participation on LinkedIn, regardless of whether they are speaking or just simply attending. When available, posts should leverage the conference’s official hashtag, along with geotags to ensure executives are reaching other expected attendees. Rather than simply announcing attendance, executives can preview the topics they are keen to learn more about or highlight their role on a panel. This helps establish relevance before the event begins and gives attendees, like partners or prospective clients, a reason to engage.
- Scheduling Media Meetings – Industry events are an ideal time to connect with key media contacts in an informal setting. The goal here should be to build familiarity, understand what the reporter is interested in, and establish a strong relationship that leads to future media opportunities. In advance, communications teams should take the time to research and identify priority media contacts and industry influencers who will be attending. Proactively reaching out to schedule meetings can help ensure these valuable conversations happen amid busy conference schedules.
During the Event: Capturing Insights in Real Time
- Thought Leadership – Conferences can be a goldmine for thought leadership. Throughout panel discussions and sessions, pay close attention to recurring questions, emerging trends, industry debates, and timely issues that can be translated into content offering a distinct perspective on topics resonating across the industry.
- Social Media – Consider capitalizing on real-time event momentum with targeted, live posts. This can be done by quoting key speakers, tagging the individual and their organization. Furthermore, executives can engage in broader industry conversations by turning session themes into open-ended questions to drive interactions. Most importantly, real-time posts should mention the event, provide necessary context on the sessions attended, and highlight key takeaways.
Post-Event: Turning Insights into Action
- Social Media – Take the opportunity to share timely key findings and observations from the event. Given LinkedIn’s emphasis on content from personal profiles, lead with posts from the executive’s personal account, which can then be reposted on the corporate page. This helps position the content as an authentic executive POV rather than a straightforward event recap.
- Thought Leadership – Immediately following the conference, your team should regroup to identify how the insights gathered can support ongoing thought-leadership efforts. Corporate blog posts are an effective way for executives to share key takeaways, reflect on important conversations, and offer their perspective on emerging industry issues. Teams should also consider how the strongest takeaways can be developed into bylined articles and other contributed content, allowing those ideas to reach a broader audience and communicate the organization’s distinct POV.
- Media Follow-Up & Outreach – Be sure to follow up with the reporters and influencers you met at the event to keep the connection fresh and remain top of mind for potential roundups or coverage stemming from the conference. This is also an ideal time to keep the conversation going by offering relevant information or perspectives discussed, sharing additional insights, or identifying potential future story opportunities. A thoughtful follow-up can turn a one-time conference interaction into an ongoing media relationship. For target media contacts you didn’t have a chance to meet with, or who did not attend the event, leverage the event’s key themes and takeaways as timely pitch material while event momentum is high.
With thoughtful planning before, during, and after an industry event, communications teams can turn an executive’s participation into a broader brand-building opportunity. This can include establishing reporter relationships, generating new content, creating media opportunities, and gathering insights that can significantly extend the impact of the conference. Once a strong approach is established, these tactics can be applied across all future events, making it easier for teams to build on what works and maximize the impact of each executive visibility opportunity.
By Sarah Tornatore, Senior Account Supervisor at Stanton