Make the most of any trade fair with these clever apps:
With approximately 1 in 6 people all over the world using a smartphone, it’s becoming more and more important to understand and incorporate mobile technology into your trade fair display or at least to take advantage of some of the amazing technology available (most of it free).
Of course, the whole point of any trade show or exhibition, is to allow the public one-on-one time with the experts, so naturally, we don’t want to trade the discussions and exchange of ideas taking place with mobile phone technology, but there are definitely ways that these apps can save you time and effort so that you can make the most of networking at any event.
With these apps, you will no longer need to carry around pens, notepads and loads of business cards. Expo visitors who previously used to leave with a bag full of cards, notes and brochures now only need a few clever apps on their smartphones. Gone are the days when trade fair attendees would be sitting around electrical outlets updating notes on their laptops.
Most conferences and exhibitions include Wi-Fi and most visitors these days either carry a smartphone or tablet, making it so easy for them to share information with colleagues that aren’t there. Apps have evolved to allow users to take pictures, notes and videos, and they’re still evolving to allow for even more interaction.
Here are some great apps to try out at the next event you attend:
Evernote:
Once you’ve set up an account with Evernote on your tablet, phone or laptop it allows you to create different several notebooks in which you can keep individual notes. You can create one notebook for a particular event with separate notes for each presentation. No need to worry about finding it again as Evernote has an excellent search feature that includes related searches.
You can include photos, slides, tags, audio and URLs in every note. Evernote can GPS-tag your notes and photos and also synchronises to your desktop. Best of all, the app is free.
One clever trick is to use it to take a photo of your car when you’ve parked at the airport, GPS-tag it, then later use the phone’s GPS to direct you back to your car when you get back.
Evernote Hello:
Ever gone through your contacts on your phone and come across one or two that you didn’t remember? Evernote Hello has you covered.
This app will link your DayTimer, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts, with your permission. You can scan in business cards or manually enter their information. It will also let you instantly connect to a group of people. The app will pull in related information about people from various online networks as well as your Evernote account to create detailed profiles.
This app is also free (with a paid upgrade) and is available on iOS and Android.
Foursquare:
If you’re attending a large exhibition, this app is a must! When you have friends wondering all over the exhibition but there are thousands of visitors to the expo, Foursquare will help you to keep track of them, as well as where the best networking is happening.
It’s easy to check in, share tips and even cash in on special deals. Sadly, the interface can be somewhat difficult to navigate and there’s no sharing to Google+.
CardMunch:
Probably the main reason for attending trade fairs is networking, which also means loads of business cards! This app will help you to avoid sky high piles of business cards buy scanning business cards and pulling the info into LinkedIn. This allows you to connect and follow up with contacts easily.
In this way it creates a “Rolodex” style dual address book without filling up your original address book.
Shoeboxed:
So you’re not an admin person and you HATE filing. With Shoeboxed you just need to take photos of receipts and the app 
will automatically enter the date, store, payment type, total and category of expense so that you no longer need to file all these receipts.
Even better, it can be integrated with a number of services, including Quickbooks, Working Point, Outright, Xero, Evernote, HP and more.
Other apps of note include Super Planner (perfect for event planners) and Dropbox (online document storage).