We do a lot of events as a company--a couple of big tradeshows (LegalTech and SES), some large conferences in our Legal, Real Estate and Events divisions, and numerous roundtables, breakfasts, dinners and smaller events. I have always believed that the best of these were actually about community networking, providing opportunities for members of a given community to come together for information sharing, discussion, deal making and, frequently, a good time. The community might consist of Canadians involved in the Media and Entertainment industry, or commercial property sellers and developers in a given city, or legal technologists. But they are a community that wants to come together, and Incisive provides the forum and the "excuse" to do that.

My dream has been to find ways to extend those communities and the networking that goes on within them beyond the one or two or three days of our events. Creating on-going communities would not only meet a need of the participants, but would allow us to maintain a connection to important groups of customers. How could that help us? Let me count the ways:

1. It would turn our event from a one-shot affair disconnected from anything else into a scheduled meeting of the network which no member would want to miss. So, as soon as we had a confirmed date and location, we could easily share that with the group with a hold-the-date message and a preferred, register-now so you won't lose out, rate.

2. Our producers could engage in an on-going dialogue about content, speakers, program ideas, etc. The more people can contribute to the program, the more ownership they will feel in it. Website producers talk about wanting to make their sites "sticky". Giving community members a way to contribute to an event would help make the event "sticky" and, in an extremely competitive world, would make our event less vulnerable to competing events.

3. Our sponsors are looking for ways to reach our communities with their messages. Being able to sell them a one or two day sponsorship at an event is nice. Finding a way to gently put their message in front of that same market over the course of a year would be even better.

4. While some of our events stand-alone, others are part of a family of publications, websites, and other related products. We want members of those communities to also subscribe to our related publications, visit our websites, attend other conferences we put on, buy our books, access our databases, etc. etc. Having a community which permits us to do some cross-marketing of our products and services could be helpful for us while strengthening our overall relationship with important client groups.

Some of our marketers are working hard to turn these concepts into reality. For example, the Events Division's legal marketing team, led by Henry Dicker and Alexis Burgess, has created two groups on LinkedIn--one is tied to LegalTech and the other to the recently held Chief Marketing Officers Forum. The object of both is to disseminate information and to keep these networks of participants engaged throughout the year. Our producers are beginning to post weekly questions with the intent of sparking debate and getting the group "talking". And they are giving the groups advance notice on keynote speakers, program topics, etc, ahead of any public disclosure, to make being in the group a bit more special.

In the Interactive Marketing Group, Matt McGowan has been using LinkedIn to support the Search Engine Strategies events. That group now has over 4,000 members who get a first look at the program, and can contribute ideas and suggestions for future events.

(For any of these LinkedIn examples, you need to be a member of LinkedIn (free!) and then subscribe individually to the groups if you want to see what's going on.)

All the people mentioned above will be happy to provide guidance about getting started. And if you are already engaged in using these tools to support our events or other things, please share what you are doing and how it's going in the comments section below.