It's our favorite time of year again – trade show season! After a brief hiatus for the winter holidays, real estate industry conventions are back in full force.

With Inman's Real Estate Connect just one week away – as well as a host of other awesome shows – we thought the timing might be exactly right for a post on how to become a trade show pro. Because booking your flight and hotel is only half the battle.

Our dedicated sales and marketing teams travel to dozens of trade shows in the US and Canada each year. So we aren't exaggerating when we say we have oodles of experience when it comes to finding the best eats, making sure your feet don't hurt and scoring the best swag. Read on for four industry-insider tips on how to be a real estate trade show pro!

Make Friends with Twitter

Today's real estate conventions and trade shows make use of identifying hashtags to enable conversations on Twitter. Hashtags are used to mark a tweet as belonging to a specific conversation. For instance, the hashtag for Real Estate Connect is #ICNY. If you click here, you will see that attendees and speakers are already using that hashtag to talk about what they're going to see and do at the conference next week.

Because Twitter happens in real time, using Twitter to find conversations about the trade show you're attending is a great way to stay ahead of the curve. You can learn which booths are giving away the best swag, find out what events are happening next and even discover great places to eat. If you're new to Twitter, check out our Twitter tips for real estate agents and get started today.