Social networking platform Twitter (X) has attracted over 500 million users – of which 284 million are active. And wow, has this been a game changer for attending and networking at data center conferences!
In this post, we’ll look at six conferences attended by data center professionals and evaluate which events have the best and weakest presence on Twitter.
Established in 1989, 7×24 Exchange International holds two major events each year.
When visiting the website for the 7×24 Exchange Spring Conference, I was able to locate a Twitter icon in the footer. However, that Twitter icon was strictly for sharing the website page rather than following the 7×24 Exchange International organization or its conference organizers on Twitter.
I also had no luck finding a Twitter profile or Twitter #hashtag for their conference when searching on both Twitter and Google.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if some conference speakers and partners were Twitter users. Keynote speaker Captain Mark Kelly is very active on Twitter (@ShuttleCDRKelly). However, of the first six speakers listed alphabetically, none had active Twitter profiles – although a few had established profiles to reserve their names.
Of the six marquis-level and gold-level partners run through Twitter search:
Ehvert Mission Critical was the only partner without a Twitter icon on its homepage. The other five marquis-level and gold-level partners – Siemens, Clune Construction Company, Power Distribution, Inc. (PDI), Sika USA, and Syska Hennessy – are mostly active on Twitter.
Produced by IMN, global organizers of institutional finance and investment conferences, the IMN Financing & Investing in Data Center & Cloud Services Infrastructure for Providers has its Twitter icon, with a “Join Us On” call to action in the upper right-hand corner of each page for the event.
Titled Real Estate Events (@IMN_RealEstate), the conference organizer’s Twitter profile is loaded with pictures – taking full advantage of the evolving visually-centric Twitter.
By scrolling through some recent status updates, you’ll find some retweets from attendees, speakers, and sponsors of recent events – tagged with the #hashtag -- #IMNevents
Throughout the website for CRE (CapRate Events), both on the home page and individual events pages, you won’t find any follow-me links for Twitter. However, what you see through the website are conspicuous links to “Join Us on LinkedIn,” – leading to the private LinkedIn Group for CRE's Commercial Real Estate Data Center Networking Group (CapRate Events, LLC).
While the LinkedIn Group for CapRate Events has over 1,500 members and allows the conference organizers to email the group once a week, just like any other LinkedIn Group, this approach keeps all conversations behind the curtain.
This shrouding has its pros and cons. On the positive side, attendees are more assured that their conversations are only being heard by those at a particular event or a previous event.
The flip side, however, is that the private nature of this LinkedIn Group makes it a lot less likely that attendees, speakers, or sponsors will be able to spread their takeaways and event evangelism to their reach.
While LinkedIn does seem to be the dominant mainstream social media channel preferred by data center professionals, Twitter is a close second. And by sidestepping Twitter, CapRate Events may be missing out on a very low-cost way to grow the reach of its events.
While Data Center World is active on Twitter, you wouldn’t know it from a quick glance at its conference home page and a few of the sub-pages.
Why’s that? As the world’s largest data center industry show (listed on their Twitter profile), Data Center World has its own private social network for the conference: Data Center World CONNECT.
From the CONNECT platform, attendees can search for and send messages to other Data Center World conference attendees – both for networking purposes and scheduling onsite meetings.
The Data Center World Twitter profile (@DataCenterWorld) also has a lots of activity from attendees, sponsors, and speakers. For organizing conversations, there’s an identically named #DataCenterWorld hashtag.
For the Gartner Data Center Conference, you’ll find a Twitter icon in the footer of each page leading to the main Gartner Twitter profile (@Gartner_inc).
Probably due to sheer luck, I was able to find that the most recent status update posted on @Gartner_inc was actually promoting the Gartner Data Center Conference – and found the #hashtag #GartnerDC
When I searched for that #hashtag, there was a pretty active stream – mostly takeaways and promotional Tweets for upcoming Gartner Data Center Conferences in different parts of the world.
Nevertheless, this does provide a basic way for attendees, speakers, and exhibitors to interact before, during, and after the conference. It also makes it easy for these same stakeholders to do some relatively straightforward evangelizing for the event with very little effort on their part.
Some conference organizers have opted out of Twitter: 7×24 Exchange and CapRate Events among these six data center conferences.
The other four – DatacenterDynamics, IMN, Data Center World (AFCOM), and Gartner – do have active Twitter profiles and event-focused #hashtags
On the surface, the #DataCenterWorld conversation appears to be the most active. However, Data Center World is also the largest footprint of these conferences.
Also, see
Which data center conferences do you attend? And do you use Twitter to network with attendees, speakers, and sponsors? Share your take in the Comments box below.
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