Over the past decade, social media has transformed the way we live. From being merely a platform to share pics of breakfasts, pets and our latest vacation trip, it has now become a juggernaut that powers the global engine of business and growth. According to the Global Digital Report 2019, the total number of social media users currently stands at around 3.5 billion – a jump of almost 9% from 2018. Today, having a solid social media strategy is at the forefront of every business marketing campaign, including event planning.
As an event organiser, one of your top priorities is to ensure your event reaches the maximum number of people. After all, pulling out all the stops to create a spectacular show won’t amount to much if there aren’t enough people watching it. With social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, promoting an event has become a breeze – you just need to ensure your social media strategy is creative enough and segmented towards the correct target audience. And one of the most effective event tools that has emerged out of these social media strategies is the social media wall.
What is a social media wall?
A social media wall is digital signage that is essentially a feed of aggregated live posts from various social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The displayed live posts generally have an event hashtag associated with them e.g. #CventCONNECTEurope. The social media wall automatically refreshes for new posts attached with the hashtag, which encourages attendees to keep sharing their unique and exciting moments at the event.
How to use a social media wall for events?
To make your event updates livelier and more engaging on a social wall, you should:
Conduct quizzes, polls, games
Nothing increases audience participation more than giving them the opportunity to take part in games and quizzes that offer prizes. Look at what happens when you run competitions at tradeshows and exhibitions. Now, you can announce the contest, ask the questions, and announce the winners right on the social media wall. Also, instead of having the proverbial Q&A and polls during different sessions, ask them on the social wall with the event hashtag – this will help you generate more free content!
Include selective speaker blurbs
Speakers are usually the main attraction for industry events and displaying interesting insights, quotes or a snapshot of their bio makes attendees even more excited for your event. Once their sessions are over, make sure you showcase selective, insightful blurbs from their speech to highlight on the social media wall – this will heighten interest among potential prospects.
Display sponsored content
No event is complete without sponsors. If you provide enough visibility for your sponsors at your event, you could even tie-in with some of them for extended partnerships. With a social media wall, you can allow sponsors to announce giveaways, rewards, and contests through a mix of full-screen announcements (keep these limited) and live tickers (these can be displayed throughout the event).
Advantages of using social media wall
At most events, you see large posters and cut-outs that are quite appealing to look at with an exciting blurb. This is part of the company’s event branding strategy to register their visual imprint in the mind of the attendees, who then further share their experience with other like-minded prospects. Let’s take the example of movies. If you go to a nearby cinema playing the latest Spider-Man film, there will be posters, character cut-outs etc with which you can pose for pics which you can then share on social media. Like these posters and cut-outs, the social media wall acts as an effective event branding tool, albeit one that is generated by users.
There are several advantages of using a social media wall at your event. For instance, you can:
Better analyse your target audience
A social media wall is a real-time feed and any review, opinion or suggestion by attendees provides critical insights into what their likes and dislikes are. This will help you mould your approach towards the audience as per their tastes and preferences and deliver even better event experiences. To get maximum responses for your analysis, you can conduct selfie contests, display leadership boards, and hold quizzes.
Keep the event buzz going
Creating an interesting social media campaign with catchy and innovative hashtags and displaying the user posts on the online feed makes attendees feel part of a tightly structured exclusive group. This generate more interactions and keeps the buzz going around your event.
Drive Sponsors Revenue, boost ROI
Since a social media wall helps maximise attendee outreach, it is a ripe source of event sponsorship revenue. Sponsors can put their posts and logos on the online feed. Pop-ups with attractive discounts, offers and brand endorsements are some easy ways to get more traction for the sponsors and ROI for your event.
Create word-of-mouth
Social media is the new age marketing medium for creating word-of-mouth for just about anything in the world. When users see a constant stream of enthusiastic tweets and posts about an event, a sense of FOMO quietly creeps up, evoking interest and intrigue. Once sufficient public interest gets generated for your event, you can be sure that the footfall for your next one will be considerably more.
Social media is certainly changing the way event organisers plan and market their events, but does a single event type work for all attendees? Download the Power of Personalisation eBook and learn how you can change your event management strategy to create unique, personalised experiences for each attendee!
