Using social media at conferences

My friend Mark Hillary yesterday wrote an article for Computer Weekly that raised an interesting point about the measurement of social media and in particular how not to use it at an event (e.g. by running a competition based purely on the number of times a particular hashtag was used by the same person).
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/social-business/2011/04/how-do-you-measure-social-media-value.html

I've often mentioned that quantity is not the same a quality when Social Media & platforms are concerned and to measure your activity purely in this quantitative way is like

judging the best driver of a car race by how loud their engine is.

But there are other ways of using modern communication technologies at events that can make a difference. These include:

1. Monitoring mentions of the hashtag to give instant feedback to vendors & participants 
2. Creating a dialogue with attendees who do tweet at the event (either during or afterward for feedback)
3. Sending out digital vouchers to those who ‘check-in’ whilst at the venue This may be to encourage them to participate in an activity or engage in a specific way (e.g. come to this stand / presentation for the latest information on...)

Hopefully conference organisers will learn how to use the digital 'back channels' such as Twitter to understand more about their attendees. They way even find there is additional value created by engaging with them once they have left the event....