What’s the Marketing Purpose of a Social Media Wall in A Trade Show Booth?

A 10 foot trade show booth includes a social media wall

Social Media Walls are big digital monitors that show a constantly-updated stream of filtered social media activity about an event. They were originally invented for special events, to give attendees a way to see the pulse of the event, keep up to date with what’s going on, and visualize the event’s energy.

Other benefits of Social Media Walls at events include:

  • Recognize and honor the most active and interesting event participants
  • Incentivize more social shares to help promote the event, both on and offsite
  • Promote more learning and networking
  • Enhance the modern image of the event and its host (be it an association, media company, or corporation)
  • Provide instant analytics about the size and changes of social shares about an event, especially during important moments such as keynote speeches

IBM at SXSW Social Media Wall

Social Media Walls are now being used by more and more trade show exhibitors, because they bring some of those same benefits, but also many new benefits to the individual exhibitor:

  • Demonstrate the exhibitor’s connection to the community, enhancing networking and relationship-building
  • Enhances the exhibitor’s image as a modern company
  • Networking opportunities with industry influencers who come to the booth to see their own social shares and possibly their ranking in number of social shares
  • Attract booth visitors who are drawn in by the impressive visual and want to see a digital representation of the pulse of the show
  • Offer a safe ice-breaker to start a dialog with attendees otherwise reluctant to enter their trade show booth
  • Conversation-starter about the messages shared on the social media wall to help identify a prospect’s pain points
  • Highlight the company’s own thought leaders as a part of the overall industry dialog on social media

Therefore, Social Media Walls can be more than pretty pixels and digital decoration. In a trade show booth, a social media wall helps exhibitors achieve multiple key sales and marketing goals: enhance their image, attract booth traffic, build relationships, generate leads, and ultimately, generate sales.

Multiple social media walls in a 10 foot display

If you’d like to see more about how you can drive more booth traffic with our social media walls and interactive trade show games, feel free to contact us with questions or to discuss your event with one of SocialPoint’s Digital Strategists. We’ll help you generate more booth traffic.

Written by

Samuel J. Smith is a thought leader, researcher, speaker and award winning innovator on event technology. In 2011, BizBash Magazine added Sam to its annual innovators list. Since then, Sam has won awards from Exhibitor Magazine, IBTM World, RSVP MN, International Live Events Association and MPI for innovation in event technology.