10th FENS Forum of Neuroscience: Compelling an online community to engage offline
Success achieved
Social media is the largest channel for “word-of-mouth” communication. It is a networking tool for FENS and a place to start discussions, highlight key scientific news and promote key elements of both the scientific and social content.- Website
- https://forum2016.fens.org
- Project dates
July 2014 – July 2016
Project team
Michela Pichereddu, Communication Officer of FENS
Tools & Systems
For FENS Forum 2016 the following platforms were used:
- LinkedIn - The FENS LinkedIn Group is an extremely active community, with members who create content and use the platform to share knowledge and communicate with colleagues
- Facebook - With thousands of fans and high reach and engagement, the FENS Facebook page provides a great platform to promote the Forum
- Twitter - With more than 1,700 followers, the FENS Tweets reached over 2 Million impressions during #FENSForum2014
- YouTube - More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month. The FENS YouTube Channel is used for improving SEO and creating more traffic to the event website
- Instagram – High potential, especially in attracting the younger audiences of FENS
Other tools used, apart from the social media channels were:
- Hootsuite – managing the social media channels and engagement;
- Mention – getting information on mentions of the event name and hashtag, as well as identifying influencers;
- Symplur – analysing the hashtag performance on Twitter;
- TweetBeam – onsite tools to engage the attendees with the conversation that goes on online;
- Woobox – for managing the FENS photo contest Other database & email tools:
- Marketo
- Salesforce
Introduction
Following a very successful Social Media campaign for FENS Forum 2014, a customised campaign was continued with for the 2016 FENS Forum to suit the needs of the society, the meeting and their target audience.
Objectives
- Increase participants
- Attract returnees from FENS Forum 2012 and 2014
- Grow the existing FENS network
- Draw-in an international audience, especially focusing on Central & South America
Social Media objectives were:
- Increase communication on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
- Use social media and videos to attract the younger crowd
- Creeate Twitter at the Forum – a new initiative for 2016 FENS Forum
- Run Competitions in the social networks to increase membership and attendance
- Create a YouTube Channel directed from the website – a new initiative for 2016 FENS Forum
Other goals
- Increase brand awareness and create a stronger professional network
- Connect FENS members
- Attract new FENS members
- Increase online exposure for leading figures involved
- Develop online interactions with the meeting organisers, speakers and attendees
- Enable professionals to shape the scientific dialogue
- Incorporate feedback for the Forum, abstract topics, and workshops
- Cross promotion of videos on other platforms (Facebook, Twitter) to attract more subscribers
- Furthermore, for each channel, after a careful analysis, the social media team defined specific actions and targets for the 2016 campaign, in brief:
- Facebook: Invest in paid promotion for important content
- LinkedIn: Update group information and send invitations to all FENS Forum2014 participants
- Twitter: Engage the 2014 top influencers
- YouTube: cross promotion of videos on other platforms (Facebook, Twitter)
- Instagram – to set up and grow
Activities
The social media team is supported by a research unit who do a comprehensive analysis on the target audience using tools as Marketo and Salesforce.
After providing the general description of the target audience, the social media team drills down to further identify relevant active users who will be engaged and have the potential to be recruited as Ambassadors for the event. This analysis is often done with the help of tools such as Mention and Symplur.
The primary target audience profiles for FENS Forum 2016 is neuroscientists many of whom are involved in research and/or are students. As FENS Forum is research oriented, educational institutions are extremely important for FENS Forum marketing efforts. The target audience may be divided into 3 subgroups which require specific marketing efforts:
- European neuroscientists
- International neuroscientists
- Young neuroscientists and neuroscience students.
The vast majority of FENS Forum participants are from Europe. In 2014, 82% were from Europe.
There were other small segments of delegates: 8% from North America and 8% from East Asia & the Pacific.
Forum - branding
With that said, the FENS Forum brand has started to expand internationally, especially in the US.
The team followed the successful FENS Forum 2014 campaign with another customised campaign for 2016. The Main Goal was to increase the number of participants and grow the existing FENS network.
The social media team drafted a plan in accordance to the goals and objectives of the event, and selected actions that will further boost the overall marketing strategy for the Forum.
The FENS Ambassadors were also involved from the get-go, spreading the word about the event, ensuring a good buzz, specifically on Twitter.
During the event, the technology used made participants excited and encouraged them to engage (social media wall, photo contest).
During the year, the social media team has been growing and maintaining all FENS social media platforms and preparing them for the next edition of the event.
Social media plays an important role to the overall return on investment of the event, where, with its help, the conversation with the FENS audience is kept alive and often results in a direct sale (i.e. congress registration), with the potential delegate making a decision after obtaining key information online via social media.
The dedicated Social Media Manager to the event works on a daily basis on all social media accounts, ensuring that no matter if there are still 10 months to go to the event or 10 days, that the buzz is alive and the audience is constantly engaged with the association and its work.
One aspect that speaks of the outstanding campaign are the Facebook Live Videos and the results they brought.
Innovation
FENS Instagram page
The imaginative process put in place came from providing authentic engagement with the FENS audience, while using smart automation too. This required a clear understanding of the association and its line of work, so to be able to engage and provide value to the members, as well as the association itself in return. Seeing opportunities such as opening an Instagram account as to its ability to reach a specific target audience and utilising Facebook Live, is where the novel techniques came into play.
Marketing
The social media cost was 4 hours per week in the leadup of the event and full days (8 hours) onsite for the duration of the Forum.
When managing the social media channels for the association, the main focus was gaining a wider audience while engaging the audience in content about the upcoming forum. This was done with a schedule of a minimum of 3 posts per week in the year leading up to the event:
- Posts about the forum (register, speakers, venue, etc.)
- Posts related to the society (membership, news, awards, etc.)
- Posts on scientific content from the field – this brings in the most engagement and ensures that our audience stays interested and active.
In the last 2 months leading up to the event, the focus was on posts directing the audience to the Forum website, which meant more than 3 posts a week (maximum 1 per day as Facebook limits reach when posting too much) and less FENS society content. This was also when the focuse turned on the “FENS Forum on a Budget” campaign, aiming to engage a younger audience, encouraging them to attend the forum without overspending.
The main schedule for posts, connected to the marketing emails, was based around the deadlines for the Forum. The event has a number of deadlines including abstract submissions, early registration, proposal submissions and late registration. In addition, the website is edited over the time leading up to the event, so other dates that played into the schedule were the launch of the scientific program online, the nnouncement of speakers attending the Forum and other new content uploaded to the site.
Facebook ads played a big role in the promotion of the Forum. With every new deadline, an ad campaign was run, targeting the relevant audience and informing them of the deadline and the direct link to the page on the website.
We also used email marketing to attract people to the forum. The marketing email schedule was tied to the social media campaign; you can find the schedule attached.
Challenges
While the project did not meet any specific challenges, what the Social Media Team works constantly on getting the older audience engaged and participating along with the younger FENS delegates. Bridging this generation gap was aided by the technology tools used onsite, such as the Social Media Wall.
Achievements
2016 surpassed all expectations, starting with social media. The total growth across all channels together with the outstanding increase in impressions by 533% speaks volumes of the achievements of the social media team.
The team had actively monitored the online space for questions, comments, replying to any such posts and taking care of all requests coming in. Engaging and providing a live feed from the hot spots around the venue proved a very well worth activity.
What the team saw as an objective that could have been met better is dedicating a Twitter hashtag to the photo contest, instead of using the general one. Additionally, even more engagement with Twitter Ambassadors is seen as crucial, after the outstanding results from 2016 Ambassador recruitment campaign.
Targets & Statistics
The results of the Marketing Campaign were astounding. The marketing plan brought website visits: traffic totalled 222,292 visits with 111,336 unique visits. It received a 27 % more visitors than the previous year. In terms of social media, the total growth across all channels together with the outstanding increase in impressions with 533% speaks volumes of the achievements of the social media team.
Financials
There was no specific investment required for the 2016 FENS Forum. However, there was a dedicated budget line for social media in the overall congress budget, amounting for 11% from the overall marketing budget for the event. Total Marketing Budget for FENS Forum was 63,450 EUR and a total of 7,000 EUR was paid for social media. 698 EUR was spent on Facebook ads for FENS 2016.
Social media plays an important role to the overall return on investment of the event, where with its help, the conversation with the FENS audience is kept alive and often results in a direct sale (i.e. congress registration), after the potential delegate has made the decision after obtaining key information online via social media.
What would we do differently?
Engaging and providing a live feed from the hot spots around the venue proved a very well worth activity, however the team has recognised that planning in advance these Livestreaming sessions would have yielded even better results, including better quality broadcast for the viewers.
Wider impact
Having such impressive results increased the brand awareness of FENS Forum immensely among its target audience. This made the event more recognisable as a brand, and the perceived content value of FENS Forum even higher by both members and non-members. With FENS Forum attracting more delegates from North America (2% more compared to 2014 and 2012 editions of the congress), it further shows the growth of the brand beyond Europe, advancing its body of work internationally.
The results of the Marketing Campaign were astounding. The marketing plan brought website visits: traffic totalled 222,292 visits with 111,336 unique visits. We received 27 % more visitors than the previous year.
