With the events industry more competitive than ever, effective marketing online is becoming far more
important in maintaining attendee levels. Social media can be a powerful method of attracting new delegates and backed up
with a well designed website that has been created to convert visitors into bookings, then this can become one of the most
cost effective tools in any event managers’ repertoire.
So how can social media benefit your event marketing? Essentially social media event marketing can be benefit every phase
of your event, these can be categorised into:
- Pre event marketing
- Engagement during the event
- Post event feedback
Events obviously need attendees and social media offers a great opportunity to market to your target audience.
Choosing which channels to use for your event will depend on your nature of your audience. Whether it is a blog a
listing in LinkedIn or a Facebook fan page will depend on who you are targeting, you may decide to broaden your audience
to include as many potential delegates as possible or you might have a very specific group in mind. What is important
is that there is a clear strategy in place and that this is monitored and fine tuned during the life of the event and beyond.
Using social media tools such as Twitter allows you to create a sense of excitement around your event. The viral nature
of twitter is a powerful way to broaden the reach of your audience and managed properly can be great way to get recommendations
and referrals. Set up a hashtag before the event and clearly communicate it on all promotions and to your event attendees on the
day. This will help to organise comments and adds a dynamic way for you and your audience to interact. In addition, an agreed hashtag
allows people who couldn’t make the event to join in on the conversation and also keeps the conversation going even when the event is over.
Blogs have almost become de rigueur nowadays, they offer a great way to engage with your potential delegates and should be an
essential part of most marketing campaigns. Building your events blog well in advance will give you a distinct advantage, it will
allow you to build up a following prior to the event. Consider the content for your blog carefully; interesting articles that offer
your audience something other than just pushing your event are more likely to get more traffic to your blog and ultimately delegates
to your event. In addition, think about search terms that delegates might use to find your event and work these in to your blog posts
to improve your search rankings.
Once your event in full swing, it’s important to continue engaging with your delegates. Twitter is a great tool for this,
but don’t forget Flickr and YouTube which are perfect for sharing photos and videos during the event. Consider hiring a
photographer / videographer who can upload images and video during the event. Ensure that you optimise your content for
relevant keywords and you will find new leads being generated long after the event is over.
Getting delegates involved creates communities and can be a great way to engage your audience after the event.
One way to do this is to create a LinkedIn group, invite all your delegates to join and set up some relevant discussions.
Make sure you monitor and respond to comments to encourage debate. You could also try using LinkedIn Answers to find a further
audience for your event. Find and answer relevant questions, connect with people in your industry and invite them to your event.
Even if they don’t attend you are building a strong network for future involvement.
Once your event has finished use the social media channels to monitor feedback on your event. Make sure that you engage
your audience regardless of whether their comments are good or bad, this can opportunity to gain insight into how future events
can be improved.