Digital space is an opportunity, not a threat to professional or personal life. Social media marketing as a trend is here to stay. It is already having a profound effect on the event business. It will be one of the continuing foundation technologies that will drive marketing and business going forward.



But nobody can be significant alone in a field. You need others to decide if you are significant. To achieve significance you must reach notable influence and importance in the eyes of others. This can only be achieved by truly being engaged with them in a meaningful manner. You have to make them see their value first if you want them to return the favour. I call this “combined value.”



As technology adds more engagement and experience, and as marketers use more engaging technology in their own communications and social media programmes, what happens in-person, face-to-face experience remains in the mind of people.



To get back to the basics of human-to-human relationships, we must stop believing we can contract out our relationships to social media. While social tools created over the past few years are amazingly helpful, they are only tools. There are no shortcuts to establishing long-term and mutually beneficial relationships. If there is a yearning to have connections, we must put our phones down and talk, listen and serve the people around us. In the office, at home, in the community and at events, the time has come to look up and observe the people around us and find out what they care about outside the current project.



Experiential can create brand loyalists, but it’s when you combine it with digital and public relations that you can find your sweet spot. This effective trinity gives you the opportunity to amplify your company's brand well beyond campaign dates or physical borders.