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How To Get Your Event Trending with Social Media
Social Media is your go-to tool when promoting an event. The importance of social platforms should not be underestimated. It requires investment in time, money, and energy but in the end, you will see your investments pay off a hundred-fold.
Events agencies have found that a staggering 20% of bookings come from social media. With such a huge pull it would be foolish to neglect such an important sales tool. Therefore, we are today exploring the benefits of marketing through social media. For both sales and the continued promotion of an event. The results of which, build excitement and most importantly- strengthen brand awareness.
Social Media can feel like an untamed beast at first, with new platforms and features released every day. But if you accept its changing nature and commit to a daily presence then you will find the benefits for your event difficult to ignore. However, we do appreciate that organising an event is a timely occupation. You will not have hours available to invest in Social Media and so this blog aims to help you make an impact with just a few minutes of work every day.
Choosing The Right Platform
With Social Media being one of your most important Marketing tools, it’s important to choose the right platforms to promote your event. It feels like there are new platforms introduced everyday, so it is useful to stay on top of trends and focus your energies on the most popular. If you do a quick check of Statista, you can find out immediately the most popular social networks worldwide as of the month you check. As you can see here, this is how July 2021 trends are:
So, as an event planner reading this – you want to invest time in Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Tik Tok. Now the real question is whether you can harness the superpower of cross pollination? Create content that works across all these platforms, and you have a golden ticket for event promotion. Facebook and Instagram have made it easy as they are partnered, and posts are easily shared across the two platforms. Furthermore, Instagram have started to direct their platform towards videos thanks to the success of Tik Tok so there you can make the most of videos. However, when it comes to video promos, YouTube is king.
Encouraging Engagement
As a result of this ‘cross pollination’, promoting events has been made even more accessible for the Social Media novice. When making an event introduction, we would encourage the use of video. Often people will have their devices set to allow videos to play automatically as the scroll. As a result, videos tend to have more pull when it comes to drawing attention. Perhaps this is where the biggest investment needs to come. Creating an event ‘trailer’ can really boost sales so invest now and feel the benefit through ticket sales. There are hundreds of video companies out there so choose one to create a bespoke event trailer that gives guests a good idea of what to expect but also gets them excited! Make sure those opening seconds is what really draws them in. It is said that a person makes their mind up about a video with 5 seconds! Make that first 5 seconds count!
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Now, select the platform you feel most comfortable with, let’s say Facebook. Now create your post, include the video with a snappy by-line. Most importantly, make sure the video and post links back to your sales in some way. Whether that’s direct to a page for ticket purchase or to your website with clear accessible links to contact details. Once posted across that first platform, you can cut/paste the same content across the platforms. With platforms like Instagram/Facebook, there are action buttons that allow you to share the post across the sister platform so keep an eye out for that.
Leading Up to the Event
THE best way to make your next event a success is to get attendees trending their experiences online. Social Media is a way to get your event out to the widest possible audience. We all dream of making our event go viral but that requires an army not an individual. How do we go viral? Well, the good news is that it is totally possible. Firstly, you need to know that platforms prioritise location and concentration of posts per hour in their feeds. With this in mind, you now need to get your guests sharing their experiences online. What is the trick to this? Providing them with must take picture moments that will encourage them to get posting!
Consider geofilters. They won’t break the bank and they are a fabulous way to engage a younger group of attendees. They are illustrations that can layer over pictures specific to your event. All you need to do is create a design and submit it to Snapchat with the location and time of the event. Note that the platform needs at least one business day to put the geofilter into their system. This is a great opportunity to promote the brand/event in a fun and unique way.
As an Event styling company, it will be no surprise to read that we are encouraging the use of centrepieces and props. No, seriously hear us out. You want to encourage guests to take pictures right? Well a sure fire way of doing that is by creating picture perfect backdrops that they can’t resist. A great example of this is our Dream Circus Elephant. This prop never fails to draw in a crowd. The centrepieces work their magic too by bringing interest to each individual table. Attendees will grab a quick selfie with the centrepiece taking pride and place over their shoulder.
The Big Day is Finally Here! What Next?
The event is finally here so what can you do now to promote your event? Here is where you really hammer home the chosen hashtag. Get out some tweets that aim to get guests excited and always highlight the hashtag. Astonishingly, no matter how well promoted- hashtags on average only go into 45% of event tweets so you need to work hard to make it successful. Here are some of our top tips:
- Keep it short! With character limits to consider, attendees will always aim to shorten a hashtag so do the work for them.
- Make it memorable. Try to avoid the dull but don’t go obtuse either- something easy to remember is key!
- Paper the place with hashtags. Ok not quite but make sure that all your literature, posts and AV includes the hashtag somewhere. In fact, why not make the most of your centrepiece and include it on the base or even brand the main design with the hashtag?
- Don’t duplicate. Hard we know but just do a quick search of your hashtag before going ahead- make sure you aren’t associating with anything that isn’t on ‘brand’.
- Invest in a social media wall. People love to be the centre of attention so why not create a social media wall where posts can flash up live from the event? We guarantee a lively atmosphere as guests get snap happy to see themselves on the social wall.
We hope that this guide has given you a roadmap for event promotion through Social Media. The importance of these platforms cannot be ignored, and their influence grows day by day. To be ahead of the curve you need to invest your time and energy into this ever-expanding world. For more information on how our products can help promote your event, contact the team today for a quote.