“Most of us already belong to more social networks and communities than we can effectively manage,” says Dawn Foster, an online community consultant. “Joining one more social network and maintaining information and contacts in one more place is not something that most people will spend time doing.” Instead of a new network, Foster says, meeting organizers should always publish a conference “tag,” a keyword that can be assigned to online content that allows it to be searched for. Conference registrants can tag their profiles on Facebook, for example, to connect with other attendees, or tag content on Flickr, Twitter, or their blog, to make it easy for others to search for conference-related content.

Foster posted her thoughts about meeting-specific social networks on her Fast Wonder blog and got a chorus of agreement from readers. However, Jordan Schwartz, founder of Pathable, weighed in with a dissenter's view. While he agreed “we, the digerati, are close to reaching social network overload,” he argued that the vast majority of conference attendees are far from it, and finding a social network that they all use would be tough. “Facebook is probably your best bet,” he posted, “but do you really want conference attendees seeing the wall posts and pictures that foolish friends have posted?

“Instead,” Schwartz continued, “a closed social network, where you know that everybody who is on it is someone you will actually have an opportunity to meet in person, is exactly what conferences need. You tailor your persona for that audience, and you scope your interactions to only those people who are relevant. And, everybody, regardless of whether they use Orkut or Facebook or LinkedIn, can play.”

ED. NOTE: Many meeting planners got a chance to consider Schwartz's opinion — as well as his product — first-hand in February. Meeting Professionals International used Pathable for its MeetDifferent educational conference February 7-10, in Atlanta. Look for our on-site report in the March issue.

Sidebar: Shopping Around

What to ask when researching a meeting-specific social network

• By what criteria are attendee profiles searchable: name, company, job title, interests, geographic location, other?

• Does the profile interface make it easy for attendees to link to their Web sites or blogs, or to their content on LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, or other sites? Can other multimedia content be uploaded, such as videos, pdf documents, or music files?

• Is creating a profile and searching for attendees a user-friendly experience?

• Is the networking system integrated with the conference agenda and/or a personal calendar for scheduling meetings?

• Does the product have a system for recommending attendees who should meet, based on shared interests?

• Is the system integrated with any registration providers?

• Is there a mobile interface?

• Is there an integrated private messaging system?

• Can in-network blogs, micro-blogs (like Twitter), wikis, and community chat rooms be included?

• Can features be turned on and off depending on the needs of the community?

• How can the look and feel be customized to the meeting?

• How many users can the system handle?

• How robust are the administrator tools and reporting features?

• Can meeting organizers sell sponsorships on the site? Who gets the revenues from sponsorships? Are advertising units displayed to all users or can they be segmented so that groups of users see certain ads depending on their interests or other factors?

Sidebar: Social Networking for Meetings

The Players

a2z Inc. (NetworkNow!)
Columbia, Md., a2zinc.net

Crowdvine (Crowdvine for Conferences)
Mill Valley, Calif.
www.crowdvine.com

EventMingle
Bend, Ore., eventmingle.com

Eventvue
Boulder, Colo.
www.eventvue.com

Freeman/BDMetrics
(EventMatch)
Dallas
www.freemanco.com/eventMatch/index.htm

introNetworks
Montecito, Calif.
www.intronetworks.com

Leverage Software
San Francisco
www.leveragesoftware.com

Pathable
Seattle, pathable.com

Related Articles:

• Wikis and the culture of collaboration
• How Conference Organizers Can use Blogs