2016 Best of Show Winner for HealthAchieve
Each year, an overall “Best of Show” winner is selected from the winners of the IAEE Art of the Show Competition’s 15 categories. Last year, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) took this honor with its entry in the Social Media Campaign: Under 75,000 nsf category for its HealthAchieve conference and exhibition held on 2-4 November 2015.
The signature conference and exhibition of the Ontario Hospital Association for over 90 years, HealthAchieve is an award-winning event that has long been one of the largest and most respected health care events in North America – the preeminent gathering place for health care and business leaders. HealthAchieve continues to inspire ideas and innovation by providing global health care and business leaders with an unparalleled opportunity to learn from each other, share their ideas and evolve their perspectives.
The event targets two distinct audiences: prospective attendees and potential exhibitors. The prospective attendees are made up of international health care and business leaders. The potential exhibitors are made up of medical suppliers and commercial vendors from across the globe. HealthAchieve provides the platform for unlimited networking opportunities between the two distinct audiences, and would not be the distinguished event that it is without ample participation from both.
Here, OHA shares with IAEE some of the marketing strategies it employed in its award-winning social media campaign.
“We continually strive to enhance both the HealthAchieve online and on-site experiences” said Craig Swatuk, Director, Brand Strategy and Marketing, Ontario Hospital Association. “And social media plays a key role in our ability to add more value for delegates, exhibitors and sponsors.”
Set Clear Goals and Objectives
The goal of HealthAchieve’s social media campaign was to increase awareness and registrations pre-event; to encourage dialogue and online interaction during the event; and to keep the inspiration and momentum going post-event. The objective was to deploy various tactics targeting the event’s two target audiences: prospective attendees and potential exhibitors.
Variety is Key
Keeping with HealthAchieve’s theme of inspiring ideas and innovation, OHA maximized social media with diverse offerings across various channels:
- Delegates were encouraged to share their key takeaways for a chance to win “most notable tweet” contests from different sessions.
- A content calendar was developed to share inspirational snippets of event information.
- An online scavenger hunt game for a chance to win encouraged exhibit floor traffic.
- A ‘best photo of the day’ contest was promoted on Instagram.
- A social media destination on the exhibit floor was developed that featured a live social media wall for attendees to see their posts on the screen; a photo booth for attendees to instantly upload fun event photos to their social media channels to see live on the screen; and a lounge area with charging stations for mobile devices.
Be Sure to Track Results
The results were quite remarkable:
- On Twitter, OHA saw a 39% increase in followers.
- Facebook likes increased by 5%; and Instagram followers increased by 111% from the previous year.
- The #HealthAchieve hashtag received over 11.2 million impressions – which was a 70% increase from the previous year – and it achieved its first-ever 1st place trending hashtag ranking in Canada on the Monday of the event, and moved between 3rd and 4th place rankings on the Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We’re very proud of these results and it’s an honor to be recognized by IAEE,” said Mr. Swatuk. “HealthAchieve’s digital engagement has realized terrific growth over the past few years, and we recognize the need to continually evolve our social media practices.”
The 2017 IAEE Art of the Show Competition is now underway – you have until 31 August 2017 to submit your entries!
