What makes a successful MICE influencer?
by Jade French
Influencer culture is so much more than #sponcon—it is about community building, knowledge sharing and truthful recommendations. Increasingly, there are lots of places to gain insights about the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) industry, from blogs like The MICE Blog, which brings corporate event planners together, to LinkedIn tips from the likes of Dahlia El Gazzar, whose energetic delivery makes event tech fun. There are even MICE influencer agencies run by thought leaders like Mariska Kesteloo at Word of Mice, who understands that amazing destinations, venues and conference centres provide perfect content for a new community of social media influencers.
But what makes a successful MICE influencer? We asked three multi-hyphenate professionals–a founder and editor, an entrepreneur and podcaster, and a DJ and marketer—to find out.
Content and communication
Storytelling is key to how MICE influencers reach a broad audience. Jose Garcia-Aguarod, a co-founder of Grupo eventoplus alongside Eric Mottard and Lynn Wong, takes a media-first approach to connect MICE professionals. Based in Spain, they became one of the first professional portals in Europe and their directory of agencies, venues, and case studies—alongside Eventos Magazine—is a key resource for the industry.
For Jose, “adapting our content, generating original pieces in each channel, and being fresh and personal in our approach, we have—I like to think—a special connection with thousands of professionals and that is really powerful”.
The personal touch is key to connecting with this professional audience: “When we write about a destination, we try to speak as if we were telling a friend; when we announce an open position in our company, we say we are looking for passionate industry heroes”.
@grupoeventoplus
Grupoeventoplus.com
Empowering entrepreneurs
Travel is the beating heart of the MICE industry, whether that comes in the form of incentives abroad or conference centres drawing global audiences. Vanessa Mbenoun wears many hats as a tourism entrepreneur based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is the founder of inbound tour operator Kamaroutes Travel Designers, PR company Creative and Moving and Solowomxn, a women-only travel platform. On top of everything, she is also the host of the Tourism Entrepreneur Podcast.
Vanessa is passionate about switching influencer focus away from travel bloggers with huge Instagram followings to instead empower “tourism entrepreneurs [to] take their personal brands more seriously”. For her, “[t]here are amazing, influential entrepreneurs in our industry but I think we don’t hear about them as much as we should”. However, content alone isn’t enough to create change, and true influence comes from training a new generation of professionals, particularly in South Africa where “women make up more than 65% of the tourism workforce but you don’t see enough of them in senior or founder positions”.
The Tourism Entrepreneur Podcast seeks to make change with platforms like the African Women In Tourism Incubator but has struggled to find financial support. For Vanessa, “[o]ne thing we are tired of as African entrepreneurs are unending talks; we need funding” to help nurture entrepreneurs after training and mentorship end. Showing people how to implement what they’ve learned and take their business to the next level is a crucial, yet often missing, step. Sharing these stories on the podcast is the first step to creating positive change in the industry.
Connecting in a pandemic
COVID-19 also highlighted the need for MICE influencers to think about new ways of connecting. During the pandemic, DJ Graffiti (aka Martin Smith) took his experience playing for the likes of Snoop Dogg and Beyoncé and pivoted to DJing live-streamed virtual events for clients including Google, Dell, Nike and Intel. As he puts it, “[i]n both marketing and DJing even though I might not be talking to the audience directly, we're having a conversation so listening is important”. He leverages his business degree from the University of Michigan to help companies increase online engagement by bringing employees together for a good time.
For DJ Graffiti, “a good influencer knows what content resonates with event professionals”. Taking requests and curating the event for the audience in front of him makes sure that the audience becomes the most important piece of the puzzle. Influencers need to look outwards and “create impact via thoughtful content that makes people think, building community and sparking discussion”.