When we look at today’s events industry trends, I believe we all notice one thing! Nothing happens these days without an active social media campaign. Used to its full potential, social media can have a crucial impact on all aspects of your event. Starting with attendees’ attractions, stimulate engagement to finally extensive interaction between your team and potential clients. In this way, you will be making an important point before, during, and after the occasion.
Allow me to elaborate. If you want to reach people quickly these days, social media is the place to turn. However, which social media & what is your target audience? The last what you want is to have a full room of people who are not qualified as your potential clients. However, you need to take care of so many aspects if you want your campaign to be successful and your event too. So let’s start…
The first and most crucial step is to determine what is the message you want to send. It should not be just necessary information about where and when your event is happening or what it is all about. I mean, yes, these all are important, but you should have more. You should reach your audience and create a particular emotion about your event to attract attention.
For example, you can use, venue location as a buster – many people will show up at your function just because it’s hosted at a luxury hotel ballroom or trending restaurant or lounge. Is the famous chef preparing food? Did you promise them fantastic entertainment? These pieces of information can be essential triggers that will make people decide to come or not. So use them! Create your social media posts so that people can read between the lines, and you will be surprised with results.
Ok, this is 101. For people to “buy into” they need to relate to the message’s tone and content. Ten years ago, I was relatively fresh from university and working on one social responsibility event back home in Serbia. We did everything right – at least we thought we did! Except for one thing! We spoke to 12 years old as they understand what actually “social responsibility” means. So, you need to know your audience’s language. If you are an Event or Marketing Manager and are organizing an event for your company, for example, IT Cyber Security, don’t expect programmers and engineers to understand you – you need to know what they want to see at your event.
It works. Always. Brainstorm with your team, do online research, and come up with something short, meaningful, and straight to the point. I know it could be frustrating to find that word or phrase that no one used yet but give it a try and don’t expect to find a perfect one immediately. Choose a couple of them, share them with the team, ask your friends for opinion – two heads are always smarter than one. Once done, start sharing everywhere – not just in the post related to the event and ask your team to do the same. Group efforts always bring good results.
I love them. Teaser videos and images are an exciting and highly shareable method to build-up anticipation for your event. One of the most popular mediums, videos, will increase your event hashtag’s popularity and generate interest in the event itself as somebody can share them on any platform. Longer videos can be uploaded to YouTube or directly onto Facebook, while Vine, Instagram, and Twitter allow you to upload shorter clips for maximum impact.
Yeah, I know. Most of us – event professionals and marketing people are frustrated with how much these people are charging for a couple of photos, but the reality is that we do need them. Some of them are worthed every single dirham spend. You need to choose wisely and be careful because the influencer profile needs to match your message and the audience you are targeting. She or he needs to be charismatic, well informed about the subject, and approachable. No one likes ice queens.
A couple of months ago, I worked on a Khalid Al Amiri projectKhalid Al Amiri project – well know UAE influencer. In the beginning, I was hesitating because his fee significantly attacks my budget. Still, during and after the event, I was convinced that that was the best-spent money considering the whole project. He was interacting with all guests, came well-informed, asking the right question, and, together with his highly professional team, did precisely, if not more, what we expected. The result was fantastic! Audience engagement breaks the roof, and guests were so excited that he was there, taking pictures with him, tagging events, using our #, sharing stories on Instagram, competing…The client could not be happier…
Keep your event relevant by improving it with a live stream experience. You can reach a potential audience of millions! Using the video footage, you will allow people who aren’t attending to experience what’s happening. This is the opportunity to connect with people without them being present. However, by uploading plenty of photos of your event to platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook throughout the day, you will manage to keep your company and function in the social stream of consciousness.
Moreover, do not forget customer support! Social media is valuable when it comes to providing instant support for your customers. This will enhance the live event experience by allowing you to quickly respond to inquiries from attendees, such as how to reach the venue, or timings throughout the day, etc.
Be consistent. Distribute the content generated from your event as widely as possible and reward posts created by attendees or followers. Share and mentioned them to encourage more potential content creators in the future. As for feedback, they will help you to improve your events in the future.
Above all, maintain an engaged community. I recently got an invitation from one of the beach lounges in Dubai to come with my friends as their guests and spend the day enjoying all their services. All this just because one of my posts about them had an astonishing number of views and comments. I was very positively surprised by this gesture and, of course, did my best to record all-day and post on my Instagram stories how good a time we had. That’s what I call a win-win situation.
I know I sound like a broken record, but you really should. Someone once told me that it’s not just about how luxuriously the decorated venue was or how delicious food was served. It is about the emotion you create. If you are stressed, nervous, and running around, people will notice and remember that. Instead, if you are in a good mood, calm, and welcome your guests with a smile, you will create a positive vibe that will be almost instantly spread around. Remember, no one likes cheerless hosts.
As a passionate marketing & event professional, I'm client-oriented, with an instructive sales approach, and I do believe that " The power of mouth" is one of the best ways of advertising your work.
