Welcome to Startup Monday.  Our new weekly post will feature the hottest ideas from the tech and events industry.  If you have a startup that we should look into, let us know on Twitter!

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!

Meeting and event management companies have reported that current trends are driven by people who are technologically savvy. Today it is a necessity for planners to create customized and interactive experiences. There is good news and there is bad news on the horizon for meetings and events. Take a look at these statistics released from current research reports.

1)  Meeting Spend Up; Satisfaction With That Spend Down Meeting spend was up 22% for 2010 as compared to 2009. Yet, 66% of respondents say that their number one concern is reducing costs while increasing savings of both face to face and digital events.

2) Digital Events Popularity Grows More than 30% of all meetings are now digital.Companies that use digital events save on average 12% cost savings.

3) Speakers Treated As Commodities With meeting expenditures up and organization’s dissatisfaction with that spend down, more meeting professionals are negotiating a speaker’s fee.

4) Shorter Than Short Lead Times With shorter lead times comes more meeting professional empowerment. 68% of respondents said they had permission to sign-off on short-term meeting contracts without managers’ approval.

5) The Rise Of The Spend-Shift Movement Conference participants want quality and affordability. Savvy conference organizers create experiences that cultivate connections of online community members in face to face meetings.

6)  The Business Case Trumps Intangibles Meeting professionals secure speakers that can provide a business case for their message. If a speaker’s message helps an organization meet their event’s goal, there’s a win-win for everyone.

ABCey Events wants to hear about what other meeting trends you have seen lately? Which of these surprises you?

Using Twitter as social media is a smart and inexpensive way to promote your business and reach out directly to potential customers. ABCey Events tweets everyday to connect with professionals in the event and tech industries. Here are four tips from the Social Media Examiner to help you get the maximum Twitter benefits for your business.

#1: Define your business goals and objectives Your business goals and objectives are the backbone for measuring your Twitter success. Take something you want to accomplish in your business and break it down into action items that are measurable and specific.

#2: Create your conversation strategy It’s not enough to follow people. If you really want to build a Twitter community around your business, you need give people a reason to follow you back and engage in conversation with you.

 #3: Organize your community with Twitter Lists Before you expand your Twitter community, invest a little time to organize your existing community with Twitter Lists. You should create both private and public lists and add each new person you follow to the appropriate list.

 #4: Keep expanding your Twitter community Community management, the process of adding and removing people from your Twitter community, is an ongoing activity. It’s important that you don’t follow too many new people at one time. If you act like a spammer, someone might report you as such and Twitter might suspend your account!

To be a good Twitter member, connect with your community as a real person and build your relationships one at a time. What’s your experience with Twitter? Do you have a community management strategy?

Have you been wondering what those black and white boxes are that look like crossword puzzles and are all over almost every product these days? Quick Response codes (QR codes) are two-dimensional matrix barcodes that can hold thousands of alphanumeric characters of information.  Although they have been around for quite some time, they are re-gaining a lot of buzz in large part because of mobile technology. While QR codes are still considered a novelty here in the United States, they’ve been actively used for over a decade in Japan where they were invented. Consumers want immediate access to what’s relevant and QR codes are being used to make that possible. ABCey thinks that these snazzy futuristic codes deserve your attention! Thanks to Mobile Marketing’s article, we have listed 6 of the most ingenious ways the codes can be utilized in the event and technology industries.

1) In a flyer for event registration, have a code link to Paypal or a shopping cart page.

2) Have conference guests scan a code that logs them into the WIFI account.

3) Attach a QR code to your luggage so an airline can reunite you with lost bags.

4) Allow those who scan your event’s QR code to post a tweet on their page about it.

5) Promote your event with codes that can add the date/time to attendee’s calendars.

6) Add a QR code to your business card with all your contact information.

The potential for QR Codes is limitless.  What’s most exciting is how they take what social media is doing well now, bringing people together with technology, and extending it to enhance the experience. The next generation of barcodes will hold even more information – so much that an Internet connection will not even be necessary.  The content will be effectively embedded in the code.  Imagine scanning a digital code to manifest physical reality?

Today it is important for event planners, or any other professional, to have their own website. Today we looked at the Official Google Australian Blog, written by Product Specialist Kate Conroy, and found 5 tips on picking the right content. These tips will help you refine what’s on your website and give you new ideas for helping your customers understand your products and services.

TIP #1 - Make sure your customers can contact you. Do you include the basic information customers need to visit your store? An address and a map is a good start.

TIP #2 – If you are willing to travel, how far? If you travel to your customers, be clear about how far you’re willing to travel. Do you only service clients within the city limits? If you deliver, what’s your delivery area?

TIP #3 - Keep it fresh. What information can you include to keep your customers up-to-date about special offers, new products, or events? If you update Facebook or Twitter pages, include a link to these on your website.

TIP #4 - Look your best. Photos help your customers see instantly if you have what they’re after. Keep in mind some basic photo editing tips. If you’re showcasing a product, make sure it’s well lit so your customers can see the details. Consider what appears in the background.

TIP #5 - Write clear captions. If you’re including images on your homepage or in a product gallery, make sure you include relevant information in the caption.

And if you’re reading this but don’t have a website yet, visit Getting Aussie Business Online to get your own domain name and free website. What extras do you have on your website?

If you want to impress your guests, booking a keynote speaker to headline your event is a great way to encourage people to come. But how do you know which speaker to select? What exactly will he or she talk about? Will the people in attendance like the topic and the presentation? Will the speaker repeat messages from previous speakers?  What are other ways to improve the event without an expensive speaker? After you have asked these questions, it’s time to think about important ways to select your speaker.
Veer Consulting offers 3 tips to booking the right keynote speaker for your event.

1. Know what’s important: It’s easy to say you want someone to speak at your event, but the speaker needs a purpose. Create a list of priorities for your event and see which speaker’s topics and talents meet these priorities. Solicit feedback from team leadership about previous speakers and what did and did not satisfy the organization’s needs.
2. Don’t be afraid to negotiate: There are two sides to every story, and there are two sides to every deal. You know your priorities and the speaker knows his or hers. This is the time for negotiation and compromise. Does he or she need special equipment, handouts, travel costs? What is the anticipated fee? Talk with your speaker and learn what he or she needs to produce the quality experience you want.
3. Be fair in your negotiations: Reaching an agreement in which both parties are satisfied is not always easy. Be respectful of your speaker’s needs and keep your demands reasonable. Know what you want before negotiating with a speaker. Be clear in your understanding of the speaker’s talents and the audience composition.

A good keynote speaker can make a difference in your event’s success. Who has been your best keynote speaker? Do you have any tips for booking the right one?

For the full article, click here.

A good slogan can be the most effective way to draw attention to one or more aspects of a product. A perfectly formed slogan should fulfill several criteria. Timothy RV Foster, author of How Ad Slogans Work, offers insight on elements of the perfect tagline/slogan.

1) First, it should be memorable. Memorability has to do with the ability the line has to be recalled unaided. A lot of this is based on the brand heritage and how much the line has been used over the years. But if it is a new line, what makes it memorable? The big idea should be told in the advertisement. The more the tagline resonates with the big idea, the more memorable it will be.

For example, in addition to be being a clever line, “My goodness, my Guinness!” was made memorable by the illustrations of the Guinness drinker seeing his pint under some sort of threat (perched on the nose of a performing seal, for example). It invoked a wry smile and a tinge of sympathy on the part of the audience at the potential loss if the Guinness was dropped.

2) A good tagline should include a key benefit: “Engineered like no other car in the world” does this beautifully for Mercedes Benz. “Britain’s second-largest international scheduled airline” is a ‘so what’ statement for the late Air Europe. You might well say “I want a car that is engineered like no other car in the world,” but it is unlikely that you would say “I want two tickets to Paris on Britain’s second-largest international scheduled airline!”

3) In addition, a good tagline should differentiate the brand: “Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach” does this brilliantly. It’s a classic. When the line needed refreshing, it was extended in later executions to show seemingly impossible situations, such as a deserted expressway in the rush hour, with the line “Only Heineken can do this,” and lately showing unlikely but admirable situations, such as a group of sanitation engineers trying to keep the noise down to the comment: “How refreshing! How Heineken!”

4) A good tagline should also recall the brand name. What’s the point of running an advertisement in which the brand name is not clear? Yet millions of dollars are wasted this way. If the brand name isn’t in the tagline, it had better be firmly suggested. Nike dares to run commercials that sign off only with their visual logo (the Swoosh). The word Nike is unspoken and does not appear. This use of semiotics is immensely powerful when it works, because it forces the viewer to say the brand name.

5) One of the best techniques for bringing in the brand name is to make the tagline rhyme with it. Some rhymes include: “Don’t be vague. Ask for Haig”, “It needn’t be hell with Nicotinell.”, “See the USA in your Chevrolet.”, “You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.”

6) An effective tagline should impart positive feelings about the brand: All the lines mentioned previously do this, some more than others. “Once driven, forever smitten,” for example, or “Coke is it!”

7) A good tagline should be strategic: Some companies can effectively convey their business strategy in their lines, such as “Innovation” (3M), “Better things for better living, through chemistry” (DuPont), or “Disease has no greater enemy” (Glaxo/Wellcome).

Catchy taglines also try to be trendy, often without success. There are two popular trends in slogans these days. One is the single-word line, such as Hankook Tires: “Driven,” (also being used by Nissan in the US), IBM: “Think,” (neatly hijacked by Apple as “Think Different,”), or United Airlines: “Rising” (which is being dropped).

Slogans are claimed to be the most effective means of drawing attention to one or more aspects of a product. Some slogans are created just for specific campaigns for a limited time; some are intended as corporate slogans, to be used for an extended period. What is your favorite slogan?

To read the full article, click here!

Are you interested in doing something fun and new in San Francisco this weekend? ‘Why not’ you ask? Why not indeed! There are some unique events and happenings going on around town and we don’t want you to miss out! Here are some of ABCey‘s weekend picks:

To start, The Original Vintage Fashion Expo will be taking over the SF Concourse Exhibition Center on Saturday, March 19^th.  Find gems from a wide range of fashion eras (1850-1980) and price levels, amongst your fellow shopoholics, as well as designers, celebs and fashion editors from around the world. There will be 85 dealers of vintage clothing, accessories and textiles, so there will be a lot to choose from! We suggest getting there early to give yourself enough time to sift through all of this goodness and sweep it up before someone else does! Be there for the early buy, which is from 9-10:30 a.m. ($20 per ticket) or for the general hours, 10:30 a.m.-6 p.m. ($10 per ticket), all of which you can pay for at the door. The Concourse Exhibition Center is located at 635 8^th St., at Brannan St.

Feel like getting outdoors for your not so typical hike? Try the Shipwreck Hunt Hike, a free two-hour hike led by Alex Genadinik during low tide when San Francisco’s famous shipwrecks can be viewed! The tide will be the lowest this month, so if the weather is not too dodgy, get out there and work your butt for 5 miles while you look at old ships and day dream about being in Pirates of the Caribbean with the oh-so-handsome Johnny Depp by your side! The hike will take place from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, March 20^th, and will start at the Lands End Trailhead, 870 El Camino Del Mar, at 32^nd Ave. To RSVP (which isn’t necessary) or just find out more information, click here.

In the mood for a chuckle? Maybe from a famous comedic duo? If that’s what you’re feeling like this weekend, then don’t wait another minute to buy a ticket to Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith’s show (yes, they are Jay and Silent Bob, respectively)! The directing, writing, acting, comedy team is ready to strike this Saturday night at The Warfield, 982 Market St, at 9pm. For more information and to buy tickets, click here.

ABCey thinks these are some great options to ensure a fun, out of the ordinary weekend! Is there anything else going on that we should know about? Do you plan to attend any of these events?

Is Facebook really on track to reach a billion users?! It has become so important to businesses, that a marketing strategy for your company or brand IS a necessity. It’s importance to online marketers is arguably second to the importance of Google. Here are some current tips that should be able to help you out.

1. Facebook will compete with Search Engines: Marketers, take note: “Facebook is positioning itself not only as a place for in-stream, friend recommendations, but as an all-purpose hub with both traditional and social search value.”

2. Ignore the Anti- Hype: Due to the recent privacy debate, there is a lot of speculation about whether Facebook is here to stay, or whether it will be the next Friendster or MySpace. For branding purposes, it is important to know if you should invest in something for long term purposes. I agree that the mass market is here to stay.

3. Live with Community Pages: This has been a really significant development for brands. These automated pages are intended to pull together content around topics to create information resources for users. Community pages can compete with official brand presences, so make sure that your official Facebook page is relevant and up-to-date!

4. Facebook Can Be a Dangerous Place for Brands: Before you build a page, make sure that you have the resources to manage it, and manage it properly. Do you have a plan in gear in case of a crisis?

5. Build It and They Won’t Come: Facebook is a free medium with a huge audience, but a lot of time and energy needs to go into your social media strategy. A massive fan base left disengaged can quickly lose interest. However, with the right community management strategies, your Facebook fan base can be a powerful tool.

6. The Changing Face of Facebook: Whether it’s the new “Like” button, the social graph protocol or the recently announced new Facebook Groups, the fact is change and adaptation are at the heart of Facebook marketing.

7. Facebook the Retailer: With the average user spending something like seven hours a month on the site, and with many already “Liking” commercial brands, there’s a real chance that retailing might soon shift away from dotcoms and over to Facebook’s social graph.

8. A Facebook Page Isn’t a Social Media Strategy: A Facebook page isn’t a social media strategy. It might be an important part of one, but being connected socially means engaging with customers, fans and critics wherever they are. Your social strategy should be about putting a little bit of social into every move your business makes.