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This year’s Philly Tech Week is a great opportunity for both industry insiders and casual fans of technology to find out more about the innovative work being done in the Philadelphia tech community. Given the wide-ranging nature of the event, which lasts from April 28 to May 6, it’s only natural that Philly Tech Week is using social media to get the word out about events and help to highlight different event sponsors.
#1: Hashtag marketing
As with any social media campaign that spans a number of different platforms and channels, the key to creating an integrated digital marketing campaign is the hashtag. In the case of Philly Tech Week, the hashtag #PTW17 enables people to find content quickly and easily, no matter whether they are using Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. It’s short enough that it can be easily shared, and it’s also specifically customized for this year’s event (in previous years, for example, the hashtags were #PTW2016 and #PTW2015). Using the #PTW17 hashtag, it’s possible to track where to go next on the #PTW17 Innovation Crawl (a variation of the bar crawl, but focused on tech destinations in downtown Philadelphia), or the starting times of different events.
#2: First-person stories
One way to make the event come alive is by helping to tell the personal stories of all the event sponsors and partners. For example, Philly Tech Week has posted “survival tips” from event insiders about how to make the most of the week, in addition to posting plenty of photos and videos from event pre-parties. The idea is to personalize the event and make it more accessible to a broader group of people than those who spend their whole lives working with technology. That’s a great strategy to make any brand more accessible.
#3: Re-tweets for sponsors and supporters
Let’s face it, it’s the sponsors and media partners that help to determine the success of any event, and it looks like Philly Tech Week is really trying to shine a light on all of its sponsors and partners. If you check out the @PhillyTechWeek Twitter feed, it’s full of re-tweets of partners posting about events they’re holding during the week.
On Twitter, the re-tweet is typically taken as an endorsement, so the active re-tweeting is really just a way of showing some extra love for all the sponsors (including quite a few tech co-working spaces). And, of course, there’s prominent placement for the Comcast logo across all social platforms, given the fact that Comcast is the lead sponsor of the event.
#4: Real-time alerts
Finally, there’s a focus on sending out real-time alerts to make sure you get where you want on time. On the main website for Philly Tech Week, there’s full integration with #Slack planned for the event. And on Facebook, the event has promoted the ability to sign up for text alerts about “secret events” and “pro-tips” about how to get the most out of the event.
All four of these digital marketing tactics are relatively simple to pull off for any brand. If you’re a digital marketer helping to plan a new event, there’s a lot that you can learn from attending Philly Tech Week.
