Cosmoprof Trade Show

This week I'll be taking a look at the 2014 Cosmoprof Trade Show, an international B2B trade show event, and how it uses channels to promote the show. This year's event took place from July 13 to July 15. Please note this post is for educational purposes.

Facebook
Cosmoprof was quiet in the days leading up to the show, but they did post a "Who's excited?" post on July 9. This post was probably received the most engagement out of all their recent posts before, during and after.

Cosmoprof did not post any Facebook posts on the first day of the show. They posted 6 posts on the second day which included a mix of one photo, links and videos. July 15 saw two posts that were links and videos. Facebook has not been updated since the show. I saw two problems here. First, that they have 5,000+ fans on Facebook. Their posts should be garnering plenty more likes, and they should be using that following to their advantage. I also don't find the posts particularly engaging or informative. They should be asking people what their favorite booths so far are, updating a photo album or two and even utilizing some sort of photo booth. This would help showcase their vendors as well as the event. I'm sure there were some great photo opps and demonstrations that should have been covered, and there should have been some sort of wrap-up post thanking all their incredible vendors, etc. 

Twitter
Twitter is their most active form of social media before, during and after the show. It's great that they're posting about various vendors and booths, but I don't think they're going about it the right way. For example, there should be an event hashtag such as #cosmoprof2014, and they should be encouraging others to use it to compile their tweets all in one place. It would also make it easier to follow conversations about vendors and the event throughout the day. Additionally, they should be tagging vendors' Twitter accounts to promote them and vice versa. For some odd reason, they hashtag booth numbers, which doesn't really accomplish anything. Also, I think a lot of their tweets require a photo. For example tweet #2 below could use a photo of the booth or product. Because of these reasons, I don't think their Twitter engagement is where it needs to be.

Instagram 
I had a problem finding Cosmoprof's Instagram page because their website doesn't link to the account, which is a big IMC issue. However, they get a ton of engagement on Instagram and are quite active, which shows that photos work well for the trade show. Again, I did not see an event hashtag, which would have come in handy to compile photos as well as a promotion tool. People could pull up the hashtag to see all the photos from the events from vendors and attendees. Additionally, I did not find the captions very informative or engaging. For example, the caption for the Instagram below says, "Domestic Buyers Meet & Greet." Which is great, but it doesn't really say much nor does it open the door for conversation. I also did not see the show taking advantage of the location feature very often, which is also a great promotion tool.

Pinterest 

Cosmoprof's last pin was about five weeks ago. I consider this a missed opportunity because the beauty industry is so incredibly visual. They could've utilized some kind of live pinning event with Instagram or vendor photos. Additionally, I like the idea of a 2014 spotlight board, but what exactly is DB and why don't these links lead back to their website but instead to the vendors? Perhaps they should've utilized some in-house blog posts with photos to execute this Pinterest board.

LinkedIn
Cosmoprof's official LinkedIn page is private and therefore doesn't allow for self-promotion. 

The only other example of IMC I found was a blog, which makes no mention or "alert" about the event. A highlight that stood out to me was their Instagram. It still needs work, but I liked a lot of them, especially a behind-the-scenes look at them unpacking samples.

In conclusion, I don't think Cosmoprof's branding efforts surrounding their 2014 event was very consistent. They were extremely active on certain platforms and neglecting others. Not all Instagrams were shared to Twitter, no hashtags were utilized and Facebook remained pretty quiet. I would suggest they concentrate on producing more of their own content during the event, even via crowdsourcing using hashtags, etc. Cosmoprof seems like a fun and visual event, and I want to see more of it!