Some practical social media tips and tricks for CBI partners who participate at the Vakantiebeurs in The Netherlands. (But these tips and tricks are also applicable for other fairs of course.)

1. PRACTICAL SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS TO MAKE THE MOST OUT OF THE VAKANTIEBEURS
Being at the Vakantiebeurs gives you great opportunities to create some nice
content. Use this to promote yourself on social media.
Twitter is probably the best platform to use for real time communication
Always consider these basic questions:
during the Vakantiebeurs
WHAT are you sharing?
ü Visitors use hashtags to search tweets about the Vakantiebeurs. Use
ü Do you want people to visit you at the fair? #vakantiebeurs in your tweets to extend your visibility.
ü Does participating an international fair prove that you are a reliable
ü Tweet every day (2 or 3 times per day is fine) about your presence in
business partner?
Utrecht and activities. Don’t forget to mention your location.
ü Would you like to show the people behind the company name?
ü Create ‘news’ like activities going on, your observations, give-aways you
HOW can it be more attractive
have, free coffee for your visitors, and so on.
ü Text is the easiest way to share your message, but…
ü Since most visitors will only visit one day you can reuse tweets.
ü Photos usually show much more than text. Nice photo’s are meaningful
and attractive content to view and share.
ü Video is more complex to create, but has the same advantage as photos.
WHERE can it be published?
ü Besides using your own social media accounts you can try to make others Did you bring a video camera? Even a camera on a smart phone will do!
talk about you. This will give you access to their friends and followers, ü Make a brief impression of your stay at the Vakantiebeurs. You can be
expanding your reach. starring in your own video!
ü Ask whether visitors use Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare. Ask them to ü Interview visitors and ask them how they enjoy themselves. It might not
talk about you or share a picture with you on their accounts so you be the most informative video ever, but it can be nice content to publish.
become visible in their social media space. ü After publishing on Youtube you can publish it on your website, Facebook,
WHEN is the best time to publish? and Twitter.
ü For visitors of the Vakantiebeurs you should be visible on social media
‘continiously’, that is: every day and a couple of times per day.
ü Don’t wait too long with connecting with people you met. Best is to
connect as soon as you can: back in your hotel room or back home.
Do you have a LinkedIn account and are the basics of your profile page filled
ü Does your main target group live in a different time zone? Publish when
out? Then consider using it to connect with (potential) business partners.
they are awake.
ü Look up the name of business contacts you met.
ü Invite them with a short personal message like “It was nice meeting you at
the Vakantiebeurs. Let’s keep in touch. Kind regards, Paul.”
Does your business have a Facebook page? Use it! It will give you the
opportunity to show a little bit about yourself, your expertise and reliability.
ü If you have a company page on Facebook make sure you also have a
friendly Facebook username like facebook.com/yourbusinessname. Go to If you have an account on Flickr (or any other photo platform) you can use it
as an extension to what is said about photography.
facebook.com/username and follow the instructions.
ü Don’t be shy to ask visitors to visit or like your Facebook page.
ü Brought your photo camera? Use it! Picture your visitor with something
related to your country or business (e.g. a hat, a musical instrument).
Publish on Facebook. Tell your visitor the will be on your Facebook page. Have a lot of pictures? Put them in a powerpoint presentation and upload it
ü Share your nicest pictures with the world: publish them directly to to Slideshare.net. The result is a photo presentation that is easy to view and
Facebook or use publish on Flickr.com or Slideshare.net first. share on Facebook. (example: http://bit.ly/SlideharePhotosExample)
by Paul Blok on behalf of Lectric – official partner of CBI