Promote Events Through Social Media – Part One

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Guest Post By:
Marina Antestenis, Marketing Manager
Active Network | Events

Social media is continually changing how we plan and promote events, especially how we engage with attendees. Event planners can use social channels to improve their events while also increasing attendance. When we started to write this, we realized we have a lot to say on this topic. From promoting an event beforehand using social media to using social channels at the event to engage your attendees, and leveraging social media afterwards, is content worthy of three blog posts.

Here are a handful of helpful tips. If you have others, please let us know in the comments section.

Using Social Media as a Pre-Event Marketing Tool
First, you have to set yourself and/or your event up on the social channels you would like to leverage. Sounds easy, but do you know which channels your audience uses most? Are they more active on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn? Perhaps all three? A quick search of Twitter lists, popular industry hashtags, relevant industry LinkedIn Groups, and even Facebook Groups, can help you find people already discussing your company or industry. This can help  narrow the channels of focus.. This can also help create your own lists of people to begin engaging with. Perhaps invite them to be a Fan of your Facebook Page, join your LinkedIn Group or follow them on Twitter (and engage with them so they will follow you back).

Once your accounts are established and you’re comfortable using them, you will need to make sure people know about your new online presence. Notify employees so they can add the links of the social media accounts to their email signatures and follow them.  Also make sure to add URLS to your email newsletter, customer emails, promotional materials for your event, website, event homepage, and your blog.

Leverage Social Media Channels to Increase Attendance
One of the benefits to social media is that you can easily identify people with similar interests to that of your industry or event. As mentioned, a search of Twitter lists, popular industry hashtags, LinkedIn Groups, and even Facebook Groups can help you find people who are already discussing your company or industry. You can leverage this research and these individuals to increase your attendance through targeted messages that encouraging engagement with your social channels.

Provide Event Giveaways
Make it worth someone’s while to follow your event through social networking. Provide valuable content regarding the event and the industry being represented. Offer followers early-bird registration offers, discounts (the 100th follower gets in free), contests, and sneak peeks of products or services being announced at the event.

Create an Event Page
A professional, interactive, and detailed event page is key. However, customizing an event page to look like an organizations website or adhering to branding standards can often be costly and time consuming. Through RegOnline, the new Theme Designer makes creating a professional and great looking event website easier for everyone.  You can match the appearance of your event to your existing website, even using the site’s CSS code to match the look and feel exactly. You can also build a custom theme that will look clean, professional and trustworthy. Or, simply choose from our library of custom-designed forms to put the skills of our professional designers to work for your organization.

Regardless of how you build your page there are key elements you need to make ensure you include. The obvious: important dates, event location, contact information, how to register, etc. But is also important that the event page has information/links to all your social channels.

Add Your Event to Facebook
RegOnline recently added a Promote page to help you publish your event to Facebook and a handful of event directories. Unlike simply posting a link to your event in a Facebook status update, the Add Your Event to Facebook feature creates a Facebook Event tied to your Facebook account that other users can register for. If you have ever received a “Sandra D invited you to the event “Sandra D’s Birthday Party…” message from Facebook, you are familiar with the concept of Facebook Events. They are a fantastic tool that you can use to increase awareness of your event among your friends, colleges, and all other Facebook users.

NOTE: You do need to remember, however, that just because someone signs up for your Facebook Event, they are not automatically signed up for your event in RegOnline.

Create an Event Blog
Your event page will house all the details for the event but your blog can go into much greater detail. For instance, you can have your speakers post their bios or even short posts regarding what to expect from their sessions. . Your blog posts also provide more content to share on your other social channels – tweeting about the post with a link back, posting the URL to your Facebook page, and sharing it with relevant LinkedIn groups.

Crowd Sourcing for Events
Solicit feedback from your followers to help plan the event. Ask people what THEY want through surveys and polls. You can also ask for recommendations for caterers, photographers, and musicians, or any other vendors you might be looking to hire for your event.

Brand Events with Designated Hashtags
Hashtags are typically a word preceded by a # sign and can be used to unify tweets from multiple people on the same subject. (For example, #SXSW is the hashtag for the popular South by Southwest event.) It is  important to promote this hashtag at the event and beforehand so people will be aware and use it. You can add this hashtag to your event page, marketing materials, blog content and other social and marketing channels. When creating your hashtag, keep in mind that you want something unique, since using a generic tag for your event (like #event) will just ensure that it gets lost in a sea of tweets.

Written By: Michelle Nikolayevsky