Social media has been taking over the world with its influence on consumers and audiences worldwide. This is one of the many reasons why we’re taking to social media to help with exposure when planning an event. Why is social media so important to include? Attendees use social media to check out what will be included at the event, see what it may have looked like a previous year that will generate excitement for this event, and even keep track of updates for the event. ALL become much easier to disclose with the use of social media.
Hopefully you understand the importance of using it, but what does it take to execute this to have a successful event?
- Where to Begin: “Before
- What tactics are worth it.
- Why follow up is so important.
Where to Begin: “Before”
Before you can jump into creating graphics, stories, etc. it’s important to create a strategy around your goals for the event. This is where you’ll determine your targeted audience, timeline, and how many people you’re hoping to reach. This will help you focus on what kind of social media platforms this audience utilizes frequently to tailor your approach.
Leading up to the event it’s important to build anticipation. This will create a lot of “hype” prior to the event that keeps people engaged and talking about it before it even happens. Here are some fun ways you can do this:
- Slowly reveal the lineup/speakers: keep momentum as the event grows closer and draws people back to your page continuously as the weeks progress.
- Announce registration window and any “early-bird” discounts happening
- Giveaways: if you’re able to give out some “swag” or memorabilia to those who are hesitant on attending or have not yet purchased, this will increase their chances of signing up
- Share throwbacks! If you’ve hosted the event before, give everyone a sneak peek of what they’ll be missing out on if they don’t join this year.
Keep these in mind as you start to develop your strategy and create the graphics/content to start pushing out.
What tactics are worth it.
There are so many different approaches one could utilize to bring in your audience. Again, keep your strategy in mind when choosing the ones you’re going to implement. Here are some of our favorites:
- Influencer Marketing
Over the past two years, influencers have grown into a massive presence on all social media platforms. People want to hear what others, like ourselves, are using day in and out. It makes them feel a part of something and is much more personable like receiving advice from a friend. Their community of followers makes them a great resource for engaging potential attendees for your event with the increased exposure.
- Paid Social Ads
Unpopular opinion but it may just be worth a couple extra bucks to drive your event out to more people. Many choose to go with paid ads because of specific demographics you’re able to target your ad towards. Facebook ads and other social media have made it easy for us to build our ideal audience before we push the ad out. This saves us time and ensures we are getting in front of the right people. The best topics to push ads out for could be discounts, notable attendees (celebrities, speakers, etc.), event merchandise, deadlines, anything that would push someone closer to signing up.
- Don’t Sleep On Hashtags
Do you remember back when we all first got instagrams how we would hashtag everything in our caption that came to mind? Newsflash, they are still VERY relevant and a great way to archive a lot of attendees’ activity at your event (maybe not as many as we used to use though). Come up with one hashtag that will be the standard that everyone can use for that specific event and promote it on your posts leading up to and during the event. You’ll be able to check the relevance of your social media presence and see real-time updates of those attending.
- Live Event Images and Videos
Just like it sounds! Take advantage of posting as the event is happening to give everyone a taste of what it’s like to be there. Post highlight reels, behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, interactive polls (who was your favorite performer?), quotes from speakers, merchandise, event swag/giveaways, etc. Anything and everything!
Why follow up is so important.
Your event is over, but most likely you have a TON of content that came from it. The best part about that is the amount of content you’re going to have for the next few months through repurposing. Save your content and use it for testimonials, quotes, events coming up in the future, the limit does NOT exist.
As posts continue to go up on social media following the event, this is a perfect opportunity to grow your community and engage with your audience. This can generate future leads, build brand awareness, and create opportunities to directly interact with your followers. This is also the perfect time to ask for feedback; post surveys, polls, and anything else to get an honest understanding of how your event was perceived.
Although this is truly just scratching the surface, we hope that these simple tips will help you spark up some new ideas to grow your events through a new means of communicating with your target audience. Remember, develop your strategy and goals first. This will help you determine what social media channels make the most sense based on your target market, what types of content you want to post(reel, video, carousel, etc.), and how you’ll be able to engage with potential customers. Ready, set…GO!!!