To set your brand apart, you need to create a stellar social media plan that not only engages attendees but also gets your brand noticed. After all, promotion on social media is far from over once your attendees walk onto the event floor. Find out how to create a rock-solid social media strategy for events that lets you harness the full power of digital, from start to finish.
Social Media Event Strategy
There is a lot that goes into creating a robust social media event strategy. From deciding which platform to choose and which hashtags to use to setting SMART goals and creating content, your strategy will dictate what and how your event-related information is disbursed on social media channels. For simplicity’s sake, let’s divide the social media event strategy into before the event, during the event, and after the event steps to show you how to create a killer digital experience for your guests.
Before the Event
The key to an effective social media strategy is to prioritise reach, connection, and anticipation for the event. Here are some ways you can achieve all three:
Identify your target audience
You don’t want your efforts to be too broad. Take advantage of the demographics of your target audience to get insights into where you should concentrate your efforts.
Select the ideal social channel
To identify the right social media channel, look at your company’s previous engagement performance on all the platforms so that you can make an informed decision.
Use hashtags
A social media plan for events should include a #memorablehashtag consistent with the event’s branding. Use this hashtag on all your social media updates, sponsor’s websites, online newsletters, and email signatures.
Engage influencers
Reach out to influencers relevant to your target audience. Explain why you are reaching out, give details about your event, and describe what you want from them. If your industry influencers shut the door on you, don’t worry. All’s not lost. Reach out to your event speakers or guests to spread the word about your event.
Ensure consistency
For a strong brand recall value, prioritise consistency across your social media presence, ensuring all the posts have the same colours, logos, and tone.
Post regularly
If you post too often, people will tune you out. Don't send a barrage of messages every day. Instead, create content that will pique the interest of your followers.
Create teaser posts
If you want to excite your followers, include teaser posts in your social media strategy for events. For inspiration, you may want to look at how Marvel promotes Avengers on social media. For a Marvel fan, seeing a well-designed image with the Avengers logo and a date far away in the future is enough to generate real excitement.
Create a Facebook Event
Over 500 million people each month use Facebook Events as part of their social media strategy. Facebook Events has great features, including ticket sales and discussions. But with over 47 million public Facebook events created, you need to keep a few points in mind to stand out from the crowd.
When building your next Facebook Event, follow these best practices:
- Select a cover picture with at least a 1920×1080 dimension
- Be specific and upfront about the time, location, and category so that Facebook can better promote your event
- Create a compelling event description
- If you're selling tickets, make sure your ticketing link stands out
- Include all the event-related information your attendees will need
- Tag invited speakers and guests
- Regularly post announcements or answers to questions that your guests may have asked.
During the Event
Amplify networking among your attendees and hosts using these social media strategies during the event.
Identify live streaming opportunities
Live streaming is increasingly becoming popular on Facebook and YouTube. Use this to your advantage by incorporating it during your next event. You can use live streaming for a keynote speech or other opportunities like interviews, etc.
Promote Your Hashtag
Make your hashtag visible in public spaces so that people will use it when sharing your event content on social media. Some places to post your hashtags are photo booths, printed materials, and photo-worthy locations.
Deploy a social wall
Make your event interactive by using a social wall at your event. This social media strategy for events is a great hit to boost engagement and encourage people to post live pictures, texts, reactions and questions with a dedicated hashtag. Display these posts on a swanky wall to turn your audience into active participants.
After the Event
Create videos
Post event videos with interesting content to drive further engagement. To ensure your social media plan for events is successful, ask your attendees to share event videos and reward those that do. Be innovative when thinking about what content to post and what prizes to gift.
Feature Event Testimonials
Find testimonials of your attendees from Instagram captions, tweets, and Facebook ruminations and use them for advertising your next event. If you don’t plan to hold an event soon, use the posts on your feeds and tagging the attendees in your post. People who post great stuff about your event on social media provide an incredibly valuable opportunity for engagement and even referral marketing!
Ask For Testimonials
As part of your social media strategy for events, use an online survey tool to get a pulse check of your event’s performance. Send these surveys directly to your attendees’ devices and send a targeted friendly reminder on social media. Make sure to ask some open-ended questions that can be used in testimonials.
