Do you remember how it used to be when it came to promoting an event a few years back? Pamphlets were distributed, advertisements were published in every local newspaper and with the word of mouth, such events were marketed. The options were limited and the targeted audience was local. Today, Social media makes everything easy.
Facebook has over 2.45 billion users and is still growing. It is a holy grail for advertisers when it comes to any kinds of promotion of an event or a product. But is it really that easy to promote an event on social media? According to a study, more than 50% of the people seem to be struggling with event promotions.
The key factor in promoting an event on social media is to know that every social media platform is different and has different uses. A failed event promotion example can be - If you advertise your event on Twitter through a video only, it’ll definitely won’t get any attention, because twitter is all about #hashtags and small tweets. There are many tips and creative ways to promote an event on social media. But if you divide the event promotion as pre-event, during event, and post-event, it becomes easier to follow through.
Social media promotion timeline is important. One needs to make a plan and have a strategy for any kind of event one is planning to host or promote. You can use Facebook and LinkedIn to create event pages, while Twitter, Facebook and YouTube can be used for live tweeting and Live video streaming the event respectively. This way a large number of audiences can be reached for the event promotion. Instagram can be used to post photos and small videos of the event, including the pre-event and post-event photos and videos. Similarly, you can use Pinterest, SlideShare or Snapchat based on your targeted audiences.
Let’s now dig into the tips on how to promote an event successfully, taking into consideration the above 3 mentioned scenarios:
Pre-Event-
Pre-event is all about creating buzz for the event. It is about strategizing and planning with your team. It should be done well before the time of an actual event. Knowing the audiences and targeting the specific audiences on social media is important. It gives you a clear perspective. Select a venue for your event, and don’t keep procrastinating about it till the end moment. Getting a venue which is convenient for the people to reach is equally important. Advertise the event by promoting it with a nice catchy hashtag. Twitter, Facebook, instagram love #hashtags!
Make the hashtag short and understandable.
Make the appropriate use of Facebook. How to use Facebook for event marketing? You can create an event on Facebook with an interesting logo or a photo, and invite people in your list asking them to RSVP. With this, you’ll know the probable number of audiences. Also, when your followers will RSVP, it’ll get added to their own feed and thereby you’ll get promotion indirectly. Make sure to add the venue, date and timing of the event on the Facebook event page. For extra promotion, make the ‘Event’ tab appear on your main page. Change all your ‘bio’ and ‘about me’ on every social network and promote your event there with your event hashtag. Ask your twitter followers to retweet the event tweet with the event hashtag too.
Nearly 80% of the audiences are browsing on their mobiles these days, so making the event content mobile friendly is also necessary. Send out event teasers and pre-event news in short, on Twitter and Facebook. Upload the short videos on Instagram in the form of short stories about the guests and speakers. Post infographics about your event on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter too, to let the audiences have an understanding about the event and drive ticket sales. Target the professional audience via LinkedIn, and promote your event with LinkedIn ads. Post event content and updates through your personal as well as company’s page. Use paid ads because that will reach a much larger audience than just a concentrated group of people on social media.
To make things fun and interesting for the people and to increase their participation, start a quiz or contest on Twitter and Facebook, although a contest is much more interesting than a quiz. Make the give away prizes interesting too. You can add your event ticket as a prize also, if the cost of your event ticket is 1000/- to start with. Posting behind the scenes videos on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube about the hard work and fun the team is having will definitely make your audience want to be part of your event.
It is obvious that when it comes to promotion, we need to invest. Although the investment is not as much when it comes to social media coverage for events, you need to make sure that whatever you are investing, you are getting paid off with the results. Using social media tools to measure the ROI is of vital importance in this scenario.
During the event-
Most people don’t do any kind of promotion on social media sites during the event. The promotion mainly is limited to the local newspaper coverage.
Make sure you have a great Wi-Fi to broadcast your event LIVE. Use Facebook Live or YouTube for Live video streaming. Apart from that, you can live tweet about the important happenings about your event too with photos and short tweets! Even if people couldn’t or didn’t attend your event, this method makes sure that they’ll attend your next event.
Request all your attendees to opt for check-in of your event on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare. Encourage the people to use the event hashtag while posting on the social media networks. This will help in gathering more audiences digitally while the event is still on-going.
Use TwitPic to post the photos and the happenings of the event live on Twitter.
Post-Event-
Post-event is all about thanking the involved teams, audiences, guests and speakers. Thank your team members for their dedication and hard work. Be thankful to your influencers and brand advocates because of whom your event was promoted by the word of mouth. You should also thank the followers on each social media for their support and participation. You need to thank your sponsors too personally and on social media too. Since you’ll be needing them next time also to sponsor your event. Writing about the success of your event on Facebook through blog posts or videos on YouTube might help in getting attention of the unattended people, and will help in improving the attendance for the next event. Post a blog about the event on your company’s website because that will help in gathering audiences professionally.
Post a survey or a poll on social media to get feedback from the audiences about improvement and ideas, which can be helpful for the next event. Give ideas about future dates of events and for follow up sessions if needed. Publish your success on all social media platforms and post the photos on Instagram and Facebook.
These are definitely the important tips to be kept in mind when it comes to the promotion of any event on social media, but apart from these, there are some Don’ts too that need to be taken into consideration. Posting about your event promotion is good, but don’t post them too frequently or don’t make a habit of posting too many posts in a day, every day. When you post on social media, people comment and ask questions. Entertain those without ignorance. It’ll build confidence between the audience and you.
Please make it sure that you shouldn’t be spamming the inboxes of your followers and social timelines. As it won’t help you in establishing your good image. Don’t post small and blurry images on any digital media, they catch no one's attention. Most important is don’t advertise your company or your products when you are promoting an event. That’s not a wise idea and it’s a way to lose respect among your audiences in a professional capacity.
Lastly, don’t forget to thank each and every person who was behind the success of your event.
