Now that your event is planned, you need to market that event to the target audience. Nowadays, it seems like using social media to market your event allows event organizers to reach the target demographic. This guide will help you market your event on all social media platforms and how to share on social media before, during and after the event!
In a study done by Buffer.com, they studied millions of social media posts during various popular events. By searching through social media platforms, hashtags and posts, this is what they found from their research:
The conversations about the events that happen on social media can help gather a larger audience. Companies, as well as the guests of the event can share any event information on their own social media pages, which can be seen by all of their social media friends. These people might see the event information and become interested!
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Your event marketing on social media needs to have a strategy. Event marketers and planners need to do customer research to determine the right target audience. Keep in mind that your event goals should reflect on your research. When you discover your target audience, some things to keep in mind are:
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As we previously discussed, attendees of all types of events discuss the event before it happens. In order to create a buzz for your event before it begins, keep these tips in mind:
Your countdown can be days or weeks leading to the event, or even down to the hours, minutes and seconds! This helps create a sense of urgency for your guests to buy tickets or register.
Event pages on Facebook are useful because they provide every detail of the event to guests. You can add where the event is being held as well as times and dates. You can even create a countdown to have on the event page!
With teasers, you can promote your event and create a sense of mystery about aspects of your event! The teaser videos can highlight any guest speakers, vendors or any contests you may have. Your guests will be intrigued by the teasers as they await for the event to arrive.
Event hashtags are so useful to have because they can be used on multiple social media platforms. Guests can look through the hashtag on any social media platforms to see what others are saying about the event!
In the weeks leading up to your event, you can change your company’s social media profiles to create a buzz around the event. You can change the profile picture or banner to the event logo in your company colors. As discussed above, you can also add a countdown to the event, and guests can see all of the changes you have done to your profile in their social feeds.
Video teasers help create a sense of mystery yet intrigue around your event! Event organizers can decide what they want to tease about the event, like who the guest speakers are going to be or any surprises they are planning. The teasers, when posted on social media, can attract guests that you may not have known would be interested in your event.
Contests and giveaways are a fun way to create a buzz around your event. Contest prizes can be as simple as door prizes, prizes under random seats at the event, or any raffles! Prizes can be company swag, gift cards or even extra days off throughout the year.
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Instagram and Snapchat have filters that guests can use to take silly pictures of videos. For your event, you can create a filter designed specifically for your event. Encourage your guests to use the event hashtag when posting these photos, and they can be used as marketing or in the end-of-event video.
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There are influencers who are willing to work with your company and promote your event on their own social media. These influencers may have a larger following than your company, so the word about your event has the potential to reach a much larger audience! You can also give these influencers tickets to your events as a thank you for sharing your event!
If you feel the need, you can use paid social ads to promote your event! By doing this, you can be sure that your event will appear in the social feeds of your potential guests. Your paid social promotions can have all of the details about the event, so there will be no confusion from your guests.
When you post about your event, less is more! If you bombard your guests with too many posts, they will definitely tune you out. Make sure that your posts are genuine and that it has all of the important information. By doing this, you won’t need to constantly update the event marketing, which will overwhelm your guests.
When you use scarcity in terms of your ticket sales, adding advertisements like “Only 10 VIP Tickets Left, Buy Now!” will encourage your guests to buy tickets sooner rather than later. By doing this, you can also add a call to action with a link to buy tickets. Boosting ticket sales will make your event even more successful.
Guest speakers for your event should be given a promo code for any future events for taking the time to speak to your guests about a range of topics. Many will appreciate the opportunity to attend and enjoy any events in the future at a discounted price!
When you use the right tools, like social media platforms, you can reach the right people when you promote your event. Do some research to find out who your target audience is and see what social media platforms they use the most. Once you have this information, the tools you use to promote your event can be the difference between a successful event and a not-so successful event.
In the time leading up to the event, you’ll want to set reminders and deadlines for your guests. Reminders allow your guests to see how much time is left before the event begins. Event deadlines are to remind them of the time they have left to purchase tickets or register!
Event hosts can interview any guests and ask them questions relevant to the event. You can ask them questions like what they are excited about or what they expect to learn from the event. These interviews can be done before or after the event; ask questions to the same people to see if their expectations were met within the event!
During your event, event organizers can be live tweeting pictures, videos and any other media throughout the event! They can also use the event hashtag so guests can search through the hashtag to see all of the pictures and videos posted by everybody.
Event hosts can walk around the event with all kinds of event swag! Through social media, you can tell the guests of the event to come and find you for the event swag. The swag may include t-shirts, reusable bags, mugs and small electronics- a great way for your guests to even further the event promotion!
Throughout your event, you can repost your guests’ social media posts as they happen. Be sure to check all of the social media platforms, as there may be posts on all of them that you can repost. It also helps create a sense of excitement when your guests see their posts on the screen!
Now that you have your target audience at your event, you can still create a buzz around the event. Encourage your guests to express their feelings about the event and their social media posts can be displayed throughout the event.
As live posts happen, you have the ability to display the posts on the screens at your event. Your guests will be excited when they see their posts on the big screen, and they may even want to take a picture of their post.
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While everybody is at your event, event organizers should livestream! A livestream can be done on any social media platform, and it allows people at home to see what is happening at the event. Event organizers can share the highlights of the event, such as the guest speakers or any networking opportunities.
Your event hashtag needs to be visible to everyone involved with the event! You can put your hashtag on any screens, tables or any materials you give your guests. Making your hashtag visible to everyone allows them to use the hashtag when they post about your event.
A social wall is the best way to showcase all your event aspects. Social walls provide links to every part of your event and lets your guests pick and choose which part of the event they want to participate in. You can add links to all of the company’s social media channels and guests can get right to the social media with one easy click!
There may be moments throughout the event that not everybody gets to experience. If this happens, event organizers should be made aware of the moment and celebrate it- any and all special moments should be celebrated, as it will help build relationships between your guests!
If there is a new product to display at your event, allow your guests to demo the product and even give a review on it. Who better to ask about a product review than the guests at your event? Event organizers can lead the product demo and explain all of the benefits of the product.
Throughout the event, take pictures and videos of your guests enjoying themselves. As the event goes on, you can post the pictures and videos to your social media, where guests can tag themselves in the pictures! As the years go on, your guests will be reminded on social media of the event they attended and may even want to attend another one.
You have successfully pulled off your event and everyone had a great time- now, you need to determine if your guests found it successful and worth their while! These tips will help you ask the right questions to your guests:
Once the event is over, you may be inundated with content from the event that came from your guests. These pictures and videos can show all different perspectives of the event, so don’t be afraid to showcase them! It will be fun for other guests and even event organizers to see the event from all different perspectives.
A guest follow up can be done as a thank you for attending the event and open up the discussion to any questions they may have. It allows your guests to ask any questions about the event or any future events, and event organizers can show them any highlights from the event.
As an event organizer, you might be sent all kinds of highlights from the event from several different guests. As you come across these highlights, be sure to save them with the permission of your guests. You can add these highlights to the final event video montage as a recap of the event.
As you wrap up your event, you can begin to look for event testimonials from your guests. Have guests use the event hashtag so event organizers can easily search for the testimonials, and with their permission, use the testimonials to promote future events!
As discussed above, guest testimonials can be searched out by the event organizers. If you are seeing that there aren’t as many testimonials, you can reach out to your guests and ask them for their testimonials. They might be more inclined to give you their feedback when asked rather than post it on their own.
By now, event organizers know which social media platforms are the most popular with their guests and which platforms to put the most effort into for promotional purposes. For example, if you know that your guests like to connect and share quickly, you would want to choose Twitter, and not Pinterest.
There may be certain aspects of your event that people want to share on their own social media. If this is the case, make your social media posts easy to share. The posts will be shared to a whole new group of people, which can widen your audience range!
If your vendors are doing any giveaways, ask them to post about them! Keep the posts to a minimum, however- too many posts about the giveaways will ruin the element of surprise for your guests and too many posts can bombard and overwhelm the guests.
Once your event is over, you can use the numbers and analytics to personalize your post-event posts. If one aspect of your event was very successful and the numbers were high, you can add those numbers and metrics to your social media post!
There may be people who registered and bought tickets for your event, but they couldn’t make it for whatever reason. Once the event concludes, you can create event summaries to highlight the event and add metrics or pictures to describe the event for those who missed it. If you highlight your event well enough, you can create a sense of FOMO and guests will be sure to register for the next event.
If you use an event hosting platform, you should end up with metrics and analytics once the event is over! The metrics can give you a better insight into the event and what your guests like and want to see in the future!
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Post-event surveys allow event organizers to ask the best questions to their guests to see if they enjoyed their event or not. You can ask all types of questions, including rating scales, numerical scales and open ended questions. You can ask general or specific questions, and even leave a spot for any suggestions for future events!
In order to help build a strong community between your guests, you need to build trust! And when you engage with your attendees and get to know them better, that is how you build trust. As the trust between your guests begins to build, the community begins to grow stronger and it grows larger. Encourage your guests to engage with one another at the event, as that is going to help build strong, long-lasting relationships.
As the event comes to a close, you should have all kinds of media including pictures and videos that you can put together in a video montage of the event to send to your guests. Be sure to add any highlights and special aspects of the event. This video will act as a memento for your guests for years to come.
There are several social media platforms that are better to use based on your target demographic and event goals. Listed below are some social media platforms you can market your event on and their characteristics!
<span class="mid-size-title">1. Facebook</span>
<span class="mid-size-title">2. Instagram</span>
<span class="mid-size-title">3. Twitter</span>
<span class="mid-size-title">4. LinkedIn</span>
<span class="mid-size-title">5. Pinterest</span>
<span class="mid-size-title">Conclusion</span>
Social media has changed so much within the past 10 years, and for the better! Companies can use their company social media pages to promote their events, receive feedback or even interact with their followers! Each social media platform has their own benefits for promoting your event, which is great for your guests, because guests may use one platform over the other! You can create countdowns to your event and help create a sense of not only excitement but urgency. At the beginning of the event, be sure to encourage your guests to take as many pictures and videos as possible, as they can be used as promotion for future events. Marketing your event on social media has a way to reach the largest audience possible, which can only help build a strong community.
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