When it comes to events, in most traditional (and even some online) marketing settings, your company is solely responsible for spreading your message. Your flyers may be passed around, and someone might occasionally forward a promotional email, but these things don’t happen often enough to have an impact on your social event marketing campaigns.
Marketing on social media, where sharing is encouraged, can have a huge impact on your event. As marketing evolves, there are constantly new platforms and strategies for event managers to attempt. But is social media marketing really needed for a great social event marketing campaign? Let’s find out.
Taking an event from idea to sell-out is no easy business. When pursuing this goal, half the battle of organizing an event is marketing it effectively. As for the marketing channels that drive attendance, hype and engagement, social media is right at the top. Best of all, social media event marketing isn’t as time-consuming as getting the word out the traditional way.
But before jumping into social media marketing, you need to choose the best social media channels for your social event marketing. Every business must learn to prioritize its marketing goals, including goals for each social media platform. Then, you can organize what information you will release through every channel.
Event Marketing on Facebook
Let’s start with the basics. Have you ever hosted a party and promoted it on Facebook? Congratulations, that’s social media event marketing. However, there’s a lot more to it than getting your friends to click “attending.”
Facebook helps attract attendants to your event and sets them up directly to your event where they can communicate and ask questions considering your social affair. Every time that someone shares that they are attending your event, it creates more hype about the event.
Facebook is the largest social network in the world with 1.13 billion active daily users. With more monthly active users than WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram combined, it makes sense to explore how you can use the platform to sell more tickets to your event and excite attendees leading up to the day.
Regarding your Facebook event marketing campaign, here are eight easy steps to a successful Facebook event marketing strategy.
Event Marketing on Twitter
Twitter, on the other hand, can set you up with a hashtag unique to your event. Attendees can tweet questions about the event as well as share the event. Having a unique hashtag simplifies communication between organizers and attendees on Twitter.
This is a vital part of your Twitter event marketing strategy—all the necessary information, social media interactions, promotions and campaigns will be tracked using this hashtag. So you want to invest enough time and effort into making it user-friendly.
Once you think you have a good nominee for the official event hashtag, make sure it holds up to the test: Is it unique? Is it short? Is it easy to remember? With the use of your event-specific hashtags, it’s easy to track how people are interacting with your event.
Interestingly, over 65% of US businesses are present on Twitter so if your event is targeting businesses, Twitter is definitely the platform for setting up a social event marketing campaign.
If you’re having trouble coming up with a great event hashtag, check out this ongoing list of the most popular hashtags.
Event Marketing on LinkedIn
When it comes to LinkedIn, the fastest way to get your event information out there is via brief status updates. Images and videos are equally important on LinkedIn as they are on any other social media channel.
The best way to engage your audience is to use large images. You can also include information about how attending your event will improve the professional lives of your targeted audience.
Use the topic channel to find what applies to your event, share posts on status updates and watch the magic unravel. LinkedIn is the best social media platform for professional networking and connecting to business professionals. Therefore, it’s a good idea to spread your social event marketing campaign here.
Event Marketing on Snapchat
If your event is targeting a younger audience, then you should ensure your event is present on Snapchat. The application allows people to send picture, video, and text messages that disappear as soon as they are open.
The short lifespan makes this social platform pretty unique compared to its rivals like Facebook and Twitter. It’s a temporary experience that has a long-term impact.
You can excite your snap followers with a behind-the-scenes look at preparations for your event. And during the actual event snap you can take ephemeral pictures and videos for those who couldn’t make it.
Event Marketing on Instagram
Last but not least, your event marketing campaign should expand to Instagram. Instagram is perfect for sharing event news through visuals. It is an extremely powerful visual tool in event planning that can be overlooked.
Instagram also has competitive features like live video and video stories, which are comparable to Periscope and Snapchat. These features on Instagram will help to promote your event and create an exciting mood with visuals.
Instagram allows users to share their videos and photos; however, the videos have a limit of sixty seconds. Nevertheless, this is enough to capture the attention of your audience. Here are some tips to creating an effective Instagram video.
Wrap Up
All in all, establishing a presence online is an effective way to promote your event. We’re all familiar with the term “sharing is caring”. In regards to event engagement, social media not only gives attendees a voice, but it adds value for the brand.
One of the biggest perks in the events industry is the growing use of social media at events, so one can safely say that social media is key to effective event marketing. Sometimes event organizers are so busy with event planning that they don’t make time to manage their social media marketing.
This is where event marketing professionals come in to save the day. Our marketing team at Valoso can help you take your event marketing to the next level. Need help with promoting your event on social media? Fill out the contact form below to discuss your event marketing strategy with Valoso.
