Looking to travel this spring? Hunting through different travel sites for convenient hotels and cheap flights can give you a headache. Event planners are on the move, whether it’s for conventions, galas, or fun. This is why we tried Wanderfly, a travel recommendation engine that goes beyond flights and hotels.  Users tailor the settings to fit their budgets and interests, and the site uses your social networks and other travel search engines to give suggestions.

ABCey is planning an event in Washington, D.C. this spring for a company attending the International Trademark Association’s Annual Meeting, so we decided to let Wanderfly help with our travel itinerary.

We set the specifications for San Francisco to Washington DC, $600 per person, early May, and for 4 days. The coolest part of this site is that you can add your interests.  For this trip we decided that our interests were: landmarks (can’t miss those in DC), food (event planners have to eat), and outdoors (May is lovely).  When we hit the “Get Going” button, we were transported to the front steps of the White House…well, not really, but it gave us everything that we needed to get there.

The first thing we did is check out the flight and hotel options.  Wanderfly uses content from travel sites such as Orbitz, Hotels.com, Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, and Mashable.  We found flight options and hotels with reviews and tips right on the page. The activities suggestions are really what makes the service unique.  For us, it recommended highly reviewed restuarants, hiking trails, and all of the important monuments. If you log into Facebook through the site, it accesses your network’s knowledge and allows you to post a question asking for advice.  

Interested yet? Even if you don’t know where you want to go on vacation, Wanderfly will make recomendations for you based on your interests and budget.  We suggest that you try them out! It is free and easy to plan vacations, even if they’re imaginary. Have you ever used Wanderfly? What travel services do you generally use? Let us know in the comments or find us on Twitter!

I’m sitting here at my desk in this New Year trying to get organized like most others. For a business owner, and for those who rely on social media marketing to draw new customers and gain recognition, it gets a bit more tricky as you have to organize all of your social networks as well. First, I made a list of all the sites I needed to update my company information on. There have been many new platforms that have popped up as of late, and if we don’t keep up we’ll be left in the dust. Others, we may have just neglected as we tend to focus on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In. Then there’s Pinterest, Quora, YouTube, Stumbleupon, G+, Tumblr, etc. I then took a look at my Klout score to measure how much influence my posts and social actions are having around the web. I scored a 49 out of 100, which is probably not terrible but not as great as I’d like.

In the past, people mainly relied on radio announcements, TV hosts and more traditional media to get their information and news. Today, you are able to connect with people all over the world using social media and can voice your opinion as often as you’d like. Klout says that “Social media has democratized influence” and it’s very true! Influence is the ability to drive action.

Klout uses data from your social networks to measure your influence. Anywhere you have an online presence, you have the opportunity to influence people by creating or sharing content that inspires actions such as likes, retweets, comments and more. The more engagement your posts receive, the more influential you are. Klout uses this information to provide you with a Klout Score that measures your overall influence and also explains how you are influenced by the world around you. Klout can also be used to help open the door for new opportunities, such as using your networks to find a new job.

Have you gotten your latest Klout score? We noticed that Guy Kawasaki is at 81 so that’s going to be tough to beat. I wonder what it takes to get a perfect score and if anyone has one? ABCey would love to hear how much influence you have, so please leave us a comment or email us at events@abcey.com. Happy Klouting!

Social media has clearly become a main medium for many businesses. Therefore, it is highly important to stay on track and avoid mistakes.  At ABCey Events, we are always using social media to connect with our clients and community, and to share our local knowledge. Brian Solis, tech guru and social media connoisseur, offers some great tips that we think are very helpful.  Here is a quick recap of what he shares with us.

1. Showing Up Isn’t Enough: While it is important you have a social medium and make a name for yourself, it is most important to learn how to engage with your followers.  Whether it be through Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social medium, make sure you really engage in conversation to attract potential consumers.
2. You Can’t be Everywhere, Nor Should You: With the extensive new up and comings of technology and new social mediums, you may be really excited to try everything. Don’t.  Be where your followers are and excel within that medium.
3. Authenticity and Transparency are Nothing Without a Connection: Authenticity and transparency are the two very important aspects to social media.  They act as a “guiding light” more so than an effective form of engagement.   Therefore, it is most important to make sure you add value and content to your social media, and in return, authenticity and transparency will support your content.
4. Talking to People Isn’t a Business Strategy: Make sure you have a purpose before you engage in conversation! It is important you engage in conversation and make people who don’t know about you, find out about you.  You want the people to start talking about your brand, so engage, engage, engage!
5. Keep Your Customers Tuned in: Adding one video is not going to make you go viral.  According to Solis, “Companies believe that uploading a video to Youtube is the key to anything going viral. What they don’t know is, 48 Hours of video is uploaded every minute to Youtube. The chance of your video going viral naturally is basically nil”.  So if you want to go viral and you are sure that going viral will help your company, seek out people that will help you share and make yourself known.  ”If it creates lift, leaves an imprint or if it drives action or outcomes, that’s when you’re going viral. “

What other common mistakes have you made as part of your social media strategy?

Do you ever spend hours in a store or shopping online, trying to find the perfect gift for someone, but just can’t quite figure out what to get them? Well, now your days have become much easier, and just in time for the holidays!  Givvy is an “open community that let’s you participate in shaping the next gift-giving trend”. Whether it’s for a birthday, holiday present, housewarming party or a little something for yourself, our community of curators makes it easy to discover trendy new gifts that will inspire you and delight your friends and family.  You can also keep track of your most important occasions and social events with a personalized calendar and gift reminder service.

Givvy is uniquely designed for use inside Facebook—so you can discover gifts and share occasions while staying connected to the friends you love most. Givvy is an open community that let’s you participate in shaping the next gift-giving trend. Simply share your favorite gift ideas with friends and earn points as your influence gains in popularity. The members with the most influence earn exclusive rewards and join our community of Curators.

Your Holiday season of gift giving has now become much easier.  Make sure to check out Givvy’s Facebook page for great ideas for the perfect gift.

ABCey Events would like to thank Larry Rubin, one of Givvy’s founder’s for making our gift-giving days much easier!

We all know that in this day and age, websites are extremely crucial for companies.  That being said, it wasn’t t until the past couple years that Typography for the web has become important.  We, at ABCey Events, are currently updating our brand and website, and we want to choose the right typography.  Here are some helpful tips that Kelli Shaver, has outlined for us:

• Readability:  Make sure that the typography you choose is readable! There is no point in having a font if no one can read it.  Therefore, sometimes sticking to default fonts for your body might be your best bet.  Although, it can be “boring”, it is easy to read and gets the point across.  So, keep it simple, stick to around 13px, and keep the font at a medium weight.  If you want to make your headline fancy, go ahead, but keep the rule of thumb: make sure it’s readable.
• Mood and Message:  Fonts illustrate the mood and message of your website.  Bold fonts can portray strength and it immediately grabs the attention of the reader, whereas lightweight fonts can portray a freedom to read and think as you wish.  Just like you shouldn’t have a variety of different font types, make sure you don’t have too many font weights as well. Pick a style and stick with it.

Google has finally made it possible for Google+ to have brand pages so businesses can merge and communicate with Google’s social network. Rather than having a Google+ profile, it will be much easier for companies to promote themselves via their own page. This will make it easier for followers to interact with the company and hopefully will increase the brand’s followers.  Users can choose to follow brands, such as specific, news, games, or restaurants, and be able to interact with that specific brand.  Ben Parr states that “when users add a brand to their circles, it increases that brand’s follower count”.  Hopefully this will be beneficial to businesses! This is very similar to Facebook and we are curious to see how and if it will affect Facebook’s brand pages.

Zeny Huang, Emerging Media Strategist at JWT New York, thinks that Google+ will be better and more successful than Facebook for four reasons:

1. Better Search Opportunities: There must be better search benefits for Google+ users because of Google.com domain.
2. More Customization: Google+ users will be able to use the excess white space on the sides of the profile for custom skinning of the brand page as well as space for advertisements.
3. Better Analytics: Google Analytics will help guide brands in organizing and specifying content on their page to direct towards their followers.  Also Google Analytics will allow advertisers have space for media placement that and will create more interaction between their followers and media spending.
4. Google Can Learn from Facebook: Google can learn from Facebook’s advantages and weaknesses and make Google+ better.

Customers will use social media to give compliments or complaints about a company, regardless of whether that company uses social media itself.  Therefore, it is important for a business to use social media to give their customers an environment to share their thoughts. Dave Toliver, Director of Corporate Marketing at Angel, gives seven ways to create a memorable customer experience with social media.

• Give Your Customers a Place to Talk:  If you don’t have a place for your customers to talk openly, they will do it behind your backs and you may never know what customers don’t like. Therefore, having a place for customers to freely give compliments or complaints, allows you to know what you are doing well or need to resolve.
• Integrate Social Media Into Your Customer Service:  Giving a place for customers to voice their complaints allows for you to find a way to fix them, but be prepared to have resolutions for the complaints.  Likewise, if a customer compliments you, make sure to give them thanks or even coupons and rewards.
• Activate Your Existing Customer Base:  Many businesses have more customers than they do Facebook or Twitter followers.  Reach out to the current customers to start building your social media fan base. Then use the social media to reach new customers and perhaps promotions to sell your product.
• Be Proactive:  Interact with customers. Engaging in conversations will make you noticeable and customers happy.
• Reward Influencers:  If you reward customers, they will most likely be advocates for your business.
• Create Compelling Content:  Give your customers something they can admire on your page.  Remember, they are following you, so you want to make them feel special and exclusive.
• Stand Out From the Crowd:  The majority of social media is done by text. Be different and make yourself stand out. Use pictures, voice applications, or even music, to engage with the customers and make yourself memorable.

Virtual events and Hybrid Events have been a hot topic for a while now. If you’re unclear on what a Hybrid event is, it is simply the extension of traditional in-person events with tools such as broadcasting and social media. For some special event professionals, hybrid events are not cutting-edge but commonplace. Every event now-a-days should really be considered a hybrid from the start, unless there is a specific reason for there not to be. The more people to get involved into a brand, a product or a communication message, the better their response will be in the form of buying decisions or recommendations. Hybrid events involve people even more than classic events did in the past, and at this point you can see that virtual and social media elements offer a lot of advantages for companies planning to use them. It’s not just regular “ROI” anymore, it’s Return on Involvement as well!

International event powerhouse Vok Dams Group, headquartered in Germany, was among the first agencies to integrate the Internet into special events back in 1998. And the company’s commitment to hybrid events is clear: “The future belongs to hybrid events, which pair live with MoSoLo—the use of mobile/social/location-based technologies,” says company leader Coja Dams. For Microsoft’s partner conference in Germany last week, the Vok Dams team turned to a mix of elements, including a custom event guide app, communication via Facebook and Xing (the German version of LinkedIn), Xbox Kinect modules at the event, and scannable tag codes at networking events that helped the 1,400 guests learn more about one another.

ABCey Events loves learning about the immersion of new and innovative technology and events. Several event pros who routinely stage hybrid events stress that complex technology is not a must though. Multi-source events can also be incredibly cheap, from Skype and Twitter, to most costly, satellite and interactive texting. We do think that putting a digital spin on a live event can make the event better. Technology is changing at light speed. It is time for the us, the event marketers of the world to assess their portfolio and align new business models to their event marketing strategies!

This post was adapted from “Hybrid Special Events–So ‘Now’ or Not Yet?” by Lisa Hurley of Special Events Magazine.

We’re loving Event Espresso over here, even though we haven’t had a chance to use this events registration and management plugin for WordPress just yet. One of the most important choices you can make for your meeting, conference, or event is the website design. The onsite registration and calendar module features make this a great choice, among many other reasons! They seem to keep adding new features too such as a custom form builder, early bird registrations, Groupon integration and Facebook, Twitter, and Mailchimp addons. This is looking like exactly what we need for some of our clients & their events!

Event Espresso has all the event management tools you need, from accepting payments to reports to promotions.

• Custom descriptions
• Multiple event dates
• Multiple event times
• Multiple event prices, surcharges, member pricing
• Event location and mapping
• Custom email confirmations
• Event categories
• On-going events
• Attendee limits
• Group registrations
• Make events a blog post
• and more!

This premium plugin for WordPress allows you to turn your existing blog or website into a fully featured event management website. If your organization offers classes, workshops, events, trainings or conferences for which participants need to register in advance, Event Espresso can make you a hero. This online event registration system can save your organization countless hours of administrative time, create a “green” and paperless event registration process, reduce costs and be available to take sign-ups 24/7. Everything from custom confirmation and reminder emails to payment management, and quite a bit more is all included and automatically handled for you.

The plugin even creates registration forms so attendees can sign up right on your website. Attendee information is also stored right in the WordPress database, allowing you to have access at any time. If you don’t have a PayPal or Authorize.net account, it’s okay. Event Espresso now offers alternate methods of accepting payments. Registrants can now download a PDF invoice or pay by Cash/Ckeck/Money Order, Bank Transfer, Authorize.net, and PayPal. There is even an option to pay by bank transfer!

Thanks Event Espresso. This is a great tool and we are sure to use it here at ABCey Events soon!

Here it is, Mac users! Few things are better than connecting with friends and family, especially when you’re far apart. A few days ago, Skype officially released Skype for Windows where you can video chat with your Facebook friends without leaving Skype. They seem to be giving the G+ huddle feature a run for thier money!  Yesterday, Skype and Facebook appeared to get cozier under the Apple sun. All the features are the same as in Skype for Windows, but now Mac users can enjoy video chatting as well. They still aren’t able to do group chat’s like G+ but hopefully that will come in the near future. We had been conducting business calls with the Huddle feature, but we’re excited to check this out now too. Nothing is better than a face to face meeting!

We must admit, good for Skype! Now they have both Windows and Mac users within the Facebook database. What are your thoughts on how it will benefit Facebook? You can download Skype 5.4 for Mac OS X Beta now. While you do that, I will go and Skype-celebrate the new update with my Facebook friends.