If you are planning to attend a conference or trade show, either as an attendee, panel member or guest speaker, this is an opportunity to showcase your participation in an industry event and celebrate the learnings from others.

From your LinkedIn Profiles

1. Airport post

These are one of our favourites. You can include pictures of your boarding pass, or the aeroplane. Of course please be sensitive to identity theft, privacy and security issues. We suggest ensuring you are not sharing your full name, your QR code, bar code, frequent flyer number etc. Post along the lines of “looking forward to soaking up all the best practice knowledge at #eventhashtag “

2. Registration post

Pictures of lanyards/ registration or satchel/ goody bag, as per the example below from my recent attendance as a speaker at the 13th Annual Procurement Australia Conference.

3. Hotel posts

Share a post of the hotel lobby, your room or the view from your hotel window.

4. Find other Conference / Trade Show Delegates

Browse who else is using the conference hashtag and connect with any interesting people. Like and comment on their content in relation to the conference. You can also use LinkedIn’s Find Nearby feature to find connections.

5. Take Picture with Attendees

Get pictures with attendees at the conference and tag them in your post. Post along the lines of “great to connect with xyz at the recent #eventhashtag

6. Share Speakers / Presentation Images

Post about any interesting speakers/ presentations with an image of their slides or quote them. Mention them on LinkedIn with a @

7. Invite People to Connect

Consider having some message templates ready to go to invite people to connect mentioning that you met them at the conference.

8. Encourage new connections to follow your Company Page

Consider having a message template ready to invite new connections to follow your company page i.e. thanks for connecting on LinkedIn, you may also like to follow our company page where we share our best practice insights, company news etc.

9. Share the Insights You Learnt

Write a LinkedIn article as an event wrap up sharing what you learned.

From your LinkedIn Company Page

10. Images of the team at the event

Lots of pictures of you and your team attending sessions, meeting people and using the conference Hashtags

11. Images of the speakers

Posts about Interesting speakers along the lines of “we enjoyed hearing from xyz about etc.” mentioning them using @

12. Quotes from Speakers

Quote interesting speakers with an image of them presenting

Staying top of mind on LinkedIn will help you start more conversations with current and new connections.  Learning to leverage your attendance at conferences with LinkedIn takes a little bit of planning and is a great way to showcase the speakers and your investment in professional development and learning. We encourage you to follow these steps next time you attend a conference or trade show.

This post was written by Karen Hollenbach and republished here with permission.