How to use social media to up your engagement at Expo West and Expo East

At an event like Natural Products Expo West or Expo East, it’s not possible to be everywhere at once. Fortunately, you’re able to get your message out—and quickly—with little effort. You just have to know how to go about it the right way.

Here are 10 tips to extend your reach at Expo.

Create a strategy

An established company introducing a new product line is going to have a much different strategy than a startup at a tabletop launching their first product. Decide on a solid strategy weeks before the show and stick to it!

Share what inspires you

Walk the show floor and see what you like. In the course of a day, this can make up a handful of your posts. You’ll want to keep in mind the competition, but give kudos to brands that you think are doing inspiring things.

Take great photos

Don’t forget about Instagram! Beef up your photo skills and keep your feed active. Before the show, post photos of products you’ll be sampling and your team prepping for the show.

Keep video in the mix

Shoot yourself setting up your booth, promote your product and encourage attendees to come visit your booth. You can post these on Instagram now, too.

Get linked up

First, join the Natural Products Expo group. Use it to start discussions (not promotions) that will help attendees or other exhibitors. Then, connect with and thank those who stopped by your booth.

Tie posts to live events at your booth

Think outside the box and use your product in a way that will "wow" attendees. Then create an exclusive, limited-time event at your booth (like a book signing or happy hour). Send out teasers leading up to the show.

Don’t overdo it

Tweet updates as often as possible, but keep updates relevant to attendees at the show. Limit Facebook posts to once or twice a day. And limit announcing your booth number and location to once a day.

Plan ahead

Assign one or two members of your team to be responsible for managing it all. Download all your apps and schedule daily tweets ahead of time.

Use hashtags and handles

Don’t forget to tag all your posts with #ExpoWest or #ExpoEast and @NatProdExpo.

Follow up

Once you’ve gone home, be sure to follow up with the leads you’ve collected via social media. Bloggers (or even buyers) that you may have missed at the show often retweet or favorite brands that caught their eye. Use an analytics tool like Hootsuite to manage it all and track effectiveness.

By using social media effectively, you can better engage and in turn increase the ROI of your booth purchase, so get to tweeting!