Social media is a huge visibility builder and if you aren’t yet leveraging it, you are missing out on a lot!
Every event planner or convener wants his/her event to be duly attended by the right people.
For instance, if you are planning ahead for a conference, you would need all the visibility and awareness you can get so you can attract the right audience, and also lead to the point of buying your tickets or paying for a gate pass.
Whatever your goals are for planning an event, social media is a tool that can help you achieve it in a cheaper, faster, and affordable way.
It is not enough to post and think you are getting it, you need to have the right strategy in place in order to gain the attention of your audience and create the right buzz for your event.
And so, how do you gain the attention of your audience and make them interested in your next event to the extent that they even pay for it? Here are some tips on how to promote your event (on social media):
- Start early: One of the major reasons for the success of every event starts with planning early. Start planning your event early enough to avoid missing deadlines and important dates.
- Choose the appropriate networks: Just because social media is an important part of gaining visibility doesn’t mean you should promote your event on every social media networking platform. Take out time to study the kind of event you are having and then analyse the social media platforms that your target audience hang out. For instance, if you are planning an event for business executives, then a social media platform like LinkedIn is an appropriate platform to promote your event on.
- Create a special hashtag for your event: Creating a hashtag for your event can help you increase visibility, build awareness, and track the happenings around your event. Make sure your hashtag is short, memorable, and meaningful.
- Invest in sponsored Ads: Sponsored Ads are a great way to get your posts seen by people who are beyond your sphere of influence. You can create sponsored ads on any social media network of your choice.
- Invest in content marketing: Don’t only invest in adverts without getting your content right. With content marketing, you can appeal to your audiences without coming to them as promotional. Content marketing is simply a way of sharing valuable and useful content to your target audience that would eventually lead them to buy from you or pay for your services.
- Leverage influencer marketing: It is 2018; influencer marketing is the in thing. Find people who have authority in your industry and partner with them to help you create visibility for your event. Influencer marketing helps your audience receive promotional messages in a subtle yet effective way.
- Create contests and challenges around the event: Contests and challenges would help you create buzz around your event. This would work when the prize to be won is attractive. NO one would go through the stress of participating in a challenge if the prize to be won isn’t worth it.
- Be consistent: Consistency is the key to getting seen on social media. Be consistent with your message and the frequency of your postings.
- Go live on social media: Let’s see behind the scenes about your events, and tell us more about it during Live sessions. Even during the event you can stream live and let people watch from wherever they are in the word.
- Track and measure: Don’t forget to track and measure your methods and processes in other to know if you they were successful or not. This would also educate you about your next event.
