I am not a regular attendee of industry conferences. Generally, I find that they turn out to be a waste of company money and my time. There are a few reasons I feel this way:

1. They rarely provide actionable takeaways that I can apply to our business.
2. I’m not a “networker.” To be blunt, I hate it. A roomful of people I don’t know is torture for me.
3. Even when I do make connections, there is rarely any continued follow up afterwards.

This last week, I turned a corner. I participated in the MarketingProfs Business-to-Business Forum which was by far the best conference I’ve ever attended. They did such a wonderful job pulling together the materials – good speakers, good topics, and good content. Another contributor to my positive experience was the wealth of benefits that social media tools provide. What does that mean exactly? Let me explain.

Usually when I attend these events I don’t know ANYONE and, because of my aforementioned fear of approaching strangers, I find it very difficult to make good connections. That’s where Twitter comes in. I LOVE Twitter. I can’t seem to explain my obsession to others or convince them to join me, but I proudly stand up and say, “I AM A TWEETER.”

On Twitter, I follow people who have similar interests to my own. As a result, when I attend a conference these days many of my fellow Tweeters are also present – this makes introductions significantly easier. They may not recognize my name but there’s a good chance they will recognize my Twitter handle. “Becky Pearce? I don’t recognize the name” turns into “Oh, bpearce76? It’s so great to meet you in person. How’s that new company website coming and how’s your new baby?”  I’m learning that the more people you interact with at conferences, the more benefit you will get out of it.  Now that I have Twitter to handle introductions, I am seeing benefits I have never seen in the past.

But it goes even further than that. Twitter (and other social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn) has also provided me with ways to connect with people after the event. We share notes and discuss details of sessions that others may have missed.  Even more importantly, we share encouragement and excitement about what we learned at the event. We challenge ourselves which in turn challenges those around us.

We all have similar experiences no matter the size of our company or what industry we are. Why not share our experiences, good, bad and ugly?

Here are a couple of additional resources on what attendees are saying post-event. Many of these are geared towards Business-to-Business but could easily be translated to Business-to-Consumer as well.