Author: Monica Wilson from socialgrowr.com
Looking at the event marketing environment of today, it is hard to remember the day when marketing was straightforward. The script was simple: do some traditional advertising, get some of your customers to do word of mouth and send a number of direct emails. After this, you could rest easy knowing that people would show up.
Today, the landscape has shifted, and social media is largely responsible for this shift. Using social media, social media marketers can do so much more than was possible just a decade or so ago. Social networking platforms now give them platforms to live tweet, live stream, integrate social media profiles with event pages, etc. This promotion mix presents mouthwatering opportunities for event marketers.
Therefore, any social media marketer who is yet to be sold on the idea of incorporating social media into his event marketing strategies is failing big time. It is not enough to use social media tools like Social Growr to increase your Instagram engagement.
After acquiring this following, you must figure out how to better engage and interact with them. Then, every time you have an event, they will be more than happy to show up as well as share information about it on social media. The following are 8 tips that can guide you towards incorporating social media into event marketing:
1. Incorporating social media into registration pages.
VWO reports that when Taloon.com added social media buttons to their website, they recorded an 11% rate increase in their CTA click-throughs. This clearly shows the powerful effect incorporating social media to your registration pages can have to your conversion rate. By adding a social media button to the events sign up page, you allow website visitors to share information about the event with their friends and followers on social platforms.
2. Create a graphic to unify your campaign.
Every campaign you launch should clearly showcase your brand. To do this, it is important to use similar-looking graphics on mobile devices as well as on the desktop. Unifying your graphics with your campaign will ensure that your retargeting efforts bear fruit and will boost your event marketing efforts.
3. Scheduled social content.
An effective event marketer leverages the power of social media scheduling to consistently send out messages, reminders, and posts about upcoming events. A schedule will help you better manage all your social media platforms as well as ensure that messages about your event are sent out to your audiences at the right time and in all platforms.
Without a schedule, you might forget to post in some social networking sites while posting too many messages in others. Other benefits of scheduling social content include:
- Fill in gaps – scheduling gives you a clear view of all the types of content you post, allowing you to identify existing gaps in content and device ways of filling them.
- Creates consistent reach and interaction – a schedule helps you be consistent in creating a certain number of posts in certain times of day and week.
- Better identify what’s working and what’s not – a schedule will help you identify changes in how your audience is interacting with your content so that you can use this information to redesign your approach.
- Helps you get ready for what’s coming – this view of what’s coming helps you plan better for it.
4. Encourage check-in.
You can leverage social media at your event by asking your attendees to check in using social networking sites. You can also request them, if possible to also invite their friends. This can create buzz about your event on social media adding up the number of people who know and could come to the events you plan in future.
5. Get video footage of the event.
The truth is, not everyone who would have wanted to attend your event will be able to. Therefore, you should hire videographers to document the event. Then, you can use these clips to connect with other potential attendees for future events. By experiencing the show, these future attendees will start longing for your next event.
6. Promote event through local blogs, calendars & affinity organizations.
Leverage these platforms to send out information about your event. You can do this by repurposing calendar listings, asking for guest blogging opportunities to talk about your event and using those platforms to send social media messages.
7. Conduct a live poll.
The live poll could be about practically anything. You could ask people on social media to vote for their preferred products, favorite speakers, presentations, etc. You could also add live updates on your site, posting the changes in the vote count on your social channels.
8. Follow up quickly.
Use social media to send follow up messages to event attendees. Remember to include a Call to Action. You can do this a few days after the event and use this opportunity to thank them for attending. In these emails, remember to include links to your social media channels.
