POSITIVE RESULTS AT SAMOTER 2014 ALSO CAME ABOUT THANKS TO INTERNET

Now that Samoter is over, it is time to draw up some conclusions for a show that had the courage to respond to market demand and ensured the opportunity to re-launch an entire manufacturing sector.

The positive results of the 29th edition of Samoter, held this year in conjunction with Asphaltica (the International European asphalt industry exhibition), were also the outcome of a very effective web campaign that made strategic and integrated use of all online communication tools, from social media marketing through to more conventional newsletters.

As regards social media, the campaign Samoter focused on "Passion for building together" and involved users by asking them to send photos and comments on the topic. And user submitted a great deal of content, demonstrating that this specialist audience is well aware the topic, and posts generated a high rate of interaction with fans of the Facebook page and Twitter followers.

Samoter also enhanced interaction with users by implementing a social media marketing campaign with sponsored Facebook ads that attracted about 5,000 new fans. In the end, 1,362,089 people viewed Samoter posts on Facebook and there were 3,135,436 views of content associated with the page.

Samoter also achieved a highly respectable position even on Twitter, winning many new fans and a high rate of interaction with tweet, retweets and favourites thanks to a structured editorial plan involving brand-related, viral and entertainment content studied specifically for the purpose and also implemented on the Facebook platform.

Not only social media: monthly newsletters - a more traditional but certainly no less effective tool - were sent to more than 80,000 Italian and international contacts.

More than 100 banners were created and published on third-party sites and 30 DEMs were sent to a sector target list.

The visitors campaigns implemented through Google Adwords to promote online registration and advance ticket purchases were no less significant. The visitor and exhibitor campaign involved a network of hundreds of thousands of sector sites.

Samoter proved capable of keeping pace with the times and rising to the challenges that the new communication landscape imposes on trade fairs. These excellent on-line results clearly indicate that continuous improvement of Media 2.0 positioning of Samoter is feasible.