Rethinking Sponsorship in the Age of Social Media

In the last few years, new technologies have evolved in many areas, especially with the emergence of social media and Smartphones. Thus, in the event industry, professionals have introduced “QR codes, mobile, social networking, gaming, and interactive selfserve kiosks”.

However, sponsorship packages have not followed this evolution, especially as regarding to social and mobile technologies. Indeed, the both have not been included into sponsorship packages although the latter generate high revenues.

The article mentions the current situation regarding sponsorship packages and explains how sponsors and their presence could be integrated with the social media and mobile technologies, as well as the advantages related to it.

Traditional packages still rely on the physical presence – that is the sponsors’ logos appearing on signs or any object or goodies. An inconvenient of this standard practice is that its efficiency cannot be measured since only the people physically present onsite will be able to notice it. The one thing organization currently do to increase sponsors’ exposure is simply to display their logo on the Internet. Thus, physical presence onsite is no longer required.

Nevertheless, since the web provides a wide range of awareness possibilities, it is time to take advantage of it and for event professionals to “develop new models of social sponsorships”.

Social sponsorships have two major objectives. The first one is to make sure the sponsor gets maximum visibility for the longest possible period. The second one is to ensure the sponsor’s access to data that “evidences [its] exposure”. Increased exposure can start by adding the sponsor company’s webpage on to the event website, including “Twitter feeds, video, photo and presentation libraries, blogs, banners, ads, […], Facebook likes and RSS feeds. Therefore, having a social profile accessible to everyone enables to track and analyze the popularity of the webpage through periodic reports that are sent to the sponsor on a regular basis.

Other exposure elements include the fact of “sponsoring social activities” such as chats, tweets, blog posts, etc. before, during and after the event, all of these being accessible as well through mobile devices.

Multiplying elements of exposure represents an important benefit for the event organizer or marketer as he can ask for “full-price sponsorship” for each additional exposure element, thus generating high revenues.

With the emergence of new exposure elements and social sponsorships, organizations’ states of mind have to evolve as well. Indeed, they have to understand that the aim is no longer to only take money from sponsors. It is a two-way relationship in which the sponsor has to be satisfied, and works closer with event professionals in order to contribute to the success of the event. Therefore, marketers’ job becomes to market sponsors and exhibitors in addition to “the speakers, the program, the special activities, and the location”.

Social media enables everyone’s participation and thus, contributes to balancing the power of the different actors.

Furthermore, “using an online social hub” has advantages for everyone. Indeed, through it, the event producing organization get updated data; the sponsor is able to know who are its web page visitors, where they are coming from and what looked for, thanks to web traffic reporting, web visitor behavior analysis, and customer digital intelligence analysis; the attendees are provided with a new tool to enlarge their network.

In the end, we notice that there are a wide range of tools available that can increase sponsor exposure with regards to the event industry. In a context of increasing social media popularity and increasing use of Smartphones – that enable access to social media sites, all these means are efficient and benefit all parties – organizers, sponsors and exhibitors, and attendees, providing advantages for each. Moreover, they enable global awareness from anywhere in the world, at any time and at low or no cost.

Keywords: sponsorship packages, sponsors, social media, mobile devices, social sponsorships, market, power, exposure elements, social hub

References: Carawan, S. (2011, September). Rethinking Sponsorships in the Age of Social Media. Retrieved March 2012, from etouches: http://etouches.causeroom.com/index.php?s=22213&item=29091