Salesforce will be taking over the streets of San Francisco next week for their highly anticipated tech mixer, Dreamforce 2018.
The four-day event is Sept 25th-28th and showcases thought-leading speakers, 650 breakout session opportunities, with over 200,000 in attendance. Essentially, it’s the largest gathering of bloggers, thought-leaders, industry shakers in the world.
The event is bigger than a conversation about Salesforce. Dreamforce is a conversation about the evolution of SaaS Software center on social sales, marketing, and customer service as a whole.
It goes without saying Dreamforce is the jackpot of networking. How do you get the most out of this opportunity to connect with industry thought-leaders, potential partners, customers, leads, and/or influencers?
Read our #DF18 sister post 70 Influencers to Connect With At Dreamforce #DF18 and follow our Dreamforce 2018 Twitter list which you can import into your free trial of Nimble and immediately engage at scale with our Nimble/Salesforce integration along with 100+ other in-app integrations.
To help you be a networking machine, here’s how to be Nimble at Dreamforce 2018:
Before You Go
Do your research
In order to hit the ground running at Dreamforce, do your research beforehand and come prepared. Most conference organizers publish lists of invited speakers on their websites, and some of them even create Twitter lists making it very easy for you to connect with them.
Create a List of People You Want to Meet
With Nimble, you can easily bring Twitter lists into your database straight from the web without having to subscribe. It only requires one click!
Keep in mind that not everyone on a Twitter list you choose will be your target demographic. With the Smart Contacts App, you can hover over their names (or company names), find out more about them and decide if you want to bring them into your database manually.
Connect Ahead of Time
Once you get the list of Dreamforce attendees and influencers you’d like to meet, review it to see who you want to connect with ahead of time. Make sure you follow them on various social platforms and walk in their digital footprint to look for engagement opportunities.
Do they have a blog? Do they publish on LinkedIn? Read through their content, comment on it and share it with your community on social media. Don’t forget to include a contribution by including their Twitter handle or tagging them in the update when sharing on other social media sites. This will ensure that they will get a notification after you post, which might result in a direct thank you. This is your foot in the door!
Once you’ve established some rapport, it’d be a good time to send a personalized LinkedIn invitation to connect on another platform. We don’t suggest jumping into planning a meeting just yet — take some more time to engage with their content first and build a sturdy foundation.
When you are there
Download our Android or iPhone app to add everybody you interact with to Nimble, right from the Dreamforce conference floor.
Type in your lead or prospect’s name, and let Nimble do the rest. It’ll begin building an enriched contact record for you by searching the web for all their social profiles.
Step 1: Go to contacts
After opening the app, navigate to “Contacts” and click on the plus sign in the top right corner. You will get the option to add a contact as a person or as a company.
Step 2: Type in your lead or prospect’s name
Step 3: Oh wow, you’re done! Nimble has already created an insight-loaded contact record for you.
Bonus Round: Create a task to follow up
Creating tasks can help you stay on top of opportunities by reminding you to follow-up on follow-throughs. You can learn more about managing tasks inside of Nimble span class=”removed_link” title=”https://support.nimble.com/customer/portal/articles/947652″>here.
Not Attending?
No worries! Dreamforce essentially lets you digitally attend via their Trailblazer Community platform, which allows you to listen and watch all the recorded session. You can use this nifty feature to see links to top Dreamforce groups, access your registration, and get links to Dreamforce sessions.
You can also always follow the conference hashtag (#DF18) on Twitter to identify potential attendees or speakers to begin engaging with. Think of it as a virtual conference!
People love to share their experiences from Dreamforce on their social platforms. Using the conference’s hashtag makes it easy to follow the conversations in and around the event. Since Dreamforce is starting on Tuesday (9/25), feel free to follow #DF18 on Twitter.
Keep an eye on what industry experts and other attendees are sharing and saying about the conference in order to:
1. Meet New People
Thousands of people are talking about Dreamforce at the same time. This gives you an amazing opportunity to jump in and meet new people that are pertinent to your industry.
2. Talk to Peers
No matter if you are attending in person or following from home, you will see many of your peers sharing their experience from the conference. Further develop your relationship with them by engaging with their conference tweets.
3. Learn Something New
People love to share what they learn from the keynotes they attended and the slides speakers use. Many times, people will tweet out interesting statistics or takeaways from big presentations.
4. Curate Content
You should always be sharing interesting content with our network on social media. Retweeting or re-sharing something that was tweeted during Dreamforce you follow might be a nice way to refresh your feed and bring value to your followers.
5. Stay Up-to-date with Industry Trends and News
Conferences are great opportunities for new announcements. Keep an eye on the Dreamforce hashtag stream to see what companies and individuals announce and share.
6. Find New Accounts to Follow
Following the Dreamforce stream can help you grow your network, and learn how other people and companies strategize social media. Follow those you find interesting and add them to a Twitter list. If you want to “spy” on competitors without them knowing, add them to a private Twitter list. You won’t even have to follow them.
7. Prep for In-person Meetings
Engaging with Dreamforce-enthusiasts on various social platforms can give you a great opportunity to lay the groundwork for a mutually beneficial relationship before planning an in-person meeting.
We hope you find these Nimble tips help you make the most out of your Dreamforce experience!
