Tagged: event social media
Your Social Media Event Marketing Plan in 5 Easy Steps
- by Alyson Shane
Event marketing can be one of the most time-consuming parts of event planning. Luckily, by breaking down your process into simple steps you can create a plan that saves time, sells tickets, and gets your attendees excited and talking about your event.
Even better: creating an event marketing plan means you have a repeatable process that saves time on future events.
Below are 5 easy steps you can take to start building your event marketing plan today:
1. Create a Website or Landing Page
The first step to promoting event on social media is to build a website or landing page dedicated to your event. It doesnât have to be anything too complicated, but should focus exclusively on your event, what itâs about, whoâs involved, and what attendees can expect.
A website or landing page also gives you a place to brand your event, optimize for SEO, and send visitors who may not have found the website if it were only listed as a footnote on your businessâ website.
Link to your event page from your corporate website, since this will organically improve their search engine page rankings, and to ask anyone involved with planning and promoting the event to share the URL on their own blogs and social media accounts as well.
If the event is recurring, create a blog section on the website and post regular updates to build anticipation as you release the names of your speakers, talk times, session topics, activities, and more.
Each new post on your blog gives readers a new reason to visit your website, so donât miss out on this valuable marketing opportunity!
Once these pages are complete, link them to your social media accounts and run your registration through them to create a seamless attendee experience from start to finish.
2. Promote Early Bird Discounts
One of the easiest ways to ensure commitment from attendees early on is to incentivize them with early bird discounts and packages.
Not only does offering early bird discounts help you sell more tickets, but it also gives those early bird attendees time to contact their friends, family, and colleagues to encourage them to attend as well.
You can also consider using marketing tactics like referral incentives, where an attendee earns a reward or deeper discount on their ticket if they refer a certain amount of people who also register to attend.
3. Develop a Content Strategy for Your Event
One of the easiest ways to promote your event is to lean on your speakers and their ability to promote it to their audience.
One of our favorite ways to leverage your speakersâ knowledge and skills is to invite them to publish guest posts on your blog, or to participate in an interview leading up to the event.
This will help position your speakers as thought leaders in their respective industries, and it will motivate other industry leaders to attend your event.
For example, most digital marketers would jump at the chance to hear Ann Handley talk about content marketing, just like most VR developers would bend over backwards to hear John Carmack talk about what Oculus is up to.
By empowering your speakers to promote their upcoming appearance at your event on their own blogs, social media channels, and newsletters, you can encourage their audience to register to attend your event and connect with an industry expert they love.
4. Use Social Media Contests to Build Excitement
Give your attendees even more reason to be excited about your event by hosting contests and giveaways on social media.
Contests can be as simple or as complicated as youâd like, but they should all share these basic qualities:
- Has clear rules for entry. By specific!
- Encourages engagement (Liking, commenting, @ mentioning, sharing) in some way.
- Has clear start and end dates.
- Clearly states what the contest winner will receive.
For example, you could host an Instagram contest where users submit entries by Liking, sharing the post on their own feeds, and commenting by @ mentioning someone they want to bring to the event as their guest.
A prize pack could include free registration for two, meal vouchers, and any other items or experiences you can spare to make the contest as appealing and exciting as possible.
5. Find the Right Partners and Sponsors
The people you partner with can make - or break - your event, so take care to choose relationships that compliment your event and attendees.
For example, choose to have your startup-focused event catered by a local restaurant instead of choosing a corporate catering company; or partner with local hotels to secure discounts on rooms for out-of-town attendees.
Include your partners and sponsors in your content marketing plan, and partner with them on contests and giveaways, if possible. Feature them on your blog, @ mention them on social media, and ask them to do the same in return.
Event Marketing Made Easy
By taking the time to develop your social media event marketing plan you can develop a repeatable and well-tuned process that saves time, sells tickets, and helps attendees feel excited and inspired to attend your event - and tell their friends to attend, too!
Let's be friends! Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
How to Sell Out Your Event Using a Promotional Calendar
- by Alyson Shane
The secret to selling out your event isn't just about having the best speakers or the hottest venue (though those don't hurt.)
The secret to selling out your event is being organized.
Unfortunately that can be hard to do with so many deadlines, dates, and details to manage at once - especially in the months and weeks leading right up to your event.
That's where your promotional calendar comes in.
By organizing your event's significant dates into a campaign-style calendar, you can have a better understanding of what to say, and when.
To get started, download this free event promotional calendar template and follow along as we walk you through how to use it:
Identify your event milestones
Sit down and make a list of all the important dates between now and your event, such as:
- The day you announce calls for speakers
- The day the event schedule is released
- The day early bird tickets go on sale
- The day early bird ticket pricing ends
Identifying these dates in advance means you always have something to build towards in your promotional content.
Countdowns and posts highlighting that there's only a few days left to save on early bird tickets, for example, is a great way to incentive people to register early.
If you'd like some help generating and scheduling that content, fill out the box below:
16 weeks before your event
There's a lot to do in the weeks before tickets go on sale, but now is the time to start promoting your event to your community.
First, announce to your followers on social media that tickets will be on sale soon. This will start to generate some initial buzz that you can build on later.
Second, if you have a list of attendees from previous events, send them an email letting them know when they'll be able to register.
Start working with sponsors, speakers, volunteers, and other partners to coordinate a promotional strategy for the day tickets go on sale, and make sure your website is created (or updated) to start promoting the event.
13 weeks before your event
Tickets should now be on sale.
Send out an email to your mailing list to let everyone know registration has opened, and publish updates to your social media profiles and event blog (if you have one.)
Make sure your sponsors, speakers, and other partners are in lockstep and ready to start promoting ticket sales on the same day. Provide them with tracking links and any special codes they can distribute to attendees, and plan to check up on them every 3-4 weeks.
Roll out any social media or search ads announcing that tickets are now available. Make sure to highlight early bird pricing if you're offering it.
10 weeks before your event
Start heavily promoting your event and the benefits of attending.
If you've been selling early bird tickets, now's the time to end the sale and introduce regular registration pricing.
Start sending your attendees more personalized emails by segmenting them into categories based on why they're attending.
Use these emails to highlight the benefits of attending that are unique to each group and their needs, and that encourage them to share the event with their colleagues and friends.
Use your mailing list and social media to highlight speakers and topics, give shout-outs to sponsors, and testimonials from past events if you have any.
If you have a blog, ask speakers and sponsors to write guest blogs and share with their communities.
Keep track of your email open rates and click-through-rates (CTRs) to see how different messaging resonates with different categories of attendees. Now is also the time to end any unsuccessful ad campaigns, and to reallocate their budget into new ads, or ads that have been performing.
6 weeks before your event
Now is the time to add a sense of urgency to your promotional content.
Your social media, blog posts, ads, and emails should all be notifying interested attendees that time is running out.
Use this time as an opportunity to "dig deep" into your event and highlight different or unique ways to be prepared to attend. If attendees have to travel to attend, highlight interesting or unique things about the city you're in, or the venue where the event is being held.
Blog posts with subjects like "everything you need to know about XYZ event" and "everything you need for a successful XYZ event" can also be great ways to help attendees get excited about attending.
If you've been running ads, retarget users who have visited your event website and started the process of registering, but didn't finish.
Now is a great time to run a contest to keep the momentum going. There are lots of contests and giveaways you can choose to do, but the key is that contests should encourage your community to share something and, ideally, post about why they want to attend.
2 weeks before your event
Send an email to everyone who hasn't registered yet and remind them that there's barely any time left, so they should act now.
Your social media and blog content should also be sales-focused, with lots of calls to register worked into your copy.
If you were running a contest, it should have ended by now.
Download the free template
Take the guesswork out of promoting your next event and download our free event promotional calendar template.
We've created it in a spreadsheet so you can modify it to your needs, after all, some events need more than 4 months' of promotion - some get promoted all year!
If you're not excited by the idea of writing 4+ months of social media content to promote your event (we get it) sign up to be in our closed beta and start saving time on your event marketing:
How to Increase Event Attendance Using Social Media
- by Alyson Shane
Events like conferences and training sessions are a great way to build awareness about your business, increase sales and profits, and create a sense of community between your company and your customers.
Of all the tools you can use to increase event attendance, social media is one of the best (and in many cases, cheapest) ways of doing it.
Whether your next event has 50 people, or 5000 people, keep these tips in mind to help you increase attendance at your event:
Start Early
The trick to boosting event attendance using social media is to start building anticipation early.
Start promoting your event often, and early. Something as simple as âweâre planning something big for June 2020, can you guess what it is?â is enough to start generating conversation and interest.
Starting your event promotion early also helps attendees book off time to attend, which is important if your event is multi-day or out of town.
Starting early also means you have lots of time to build excitement about your event in advance, and to roll out important information as it becomes available.
Write down all your event's important dates, like when tickets go on sale or when the schedule is announced, chronologically. This will create a Event Timeline you can use to stay organized, and to make sure you always have something to build towards and promote on social media.
Share Creative Social Media Content Often
Once youâve created your eventâs website or landing page, itâs time to start actively promoting your event on social media.
When you post about your event, make sure to say more than just a call-to-action. Focus on creating quality content that gets people excited about attending.
Social media is a great way to give your audience a behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes into planning your event, which helps them feel connected and involved with you and your team.
If your event has a blog, social media is the best place to share your updates and drive traffic back to your website. Use your blog to publish guest posts by speakers and presenters, or share updates and information about venue details, sponsorship updates, schedule changes, and more.
Create Conversation Around a Branded Event Hashtag
Hashtags function like tags you can use to track and participate in ongoing conversations about the same topic across individual social platforms.
A âbranded hashtagâ is a hashtag dedicated to a specific theme, event, or business. It allows fans, attendees, and other people interested in the topic to talk to one another, and is an excellent way for you to drive conversation and excitement around your event.
Branded hashtags also work as free advertising, connecting users with conversations and content focused exclusively on your event.
Encourage your followers on social media to use the hashtag in their conversations. The more popular a hashtag is, the more hype it generates as people discover and tune into it - resulting in an increase in event attendance.
Make sure to use hashtags based on interests and reach that appeal to your ideal attendees, as well. For example, if youâre promoting is a networking conference for women in STEM careers, use #womeninSTEM in your posts to help women in that field discover your event.
Create Facebook Events
Facebook Events are one of the best tools at your disposal to promote your event.
Facebook Events earn higher organic reach on the platform, which means more people will see your event without the additional investment of social media advertising.
Creating Event Page gives you a place where you can collect and keep all the relevant information about your events in a single location on the platform.
Event pages also offer a place for attendees to ask you questions, and for you to have a public place to answer them. Users can also click on your venueâs address, which links to a map where you can include links and CTAs encouraging them to register or purchase a ticket.
When an attendee registers, Facebook will promote your event to their friends and encourage them to invite their friends as well, which can be an easy way to boost event attendance.
If youâve never set up a Facebook Event page before, keep these basic steps in mind:
- Create Events from your Business Page (vs. your personal profile). This will allow your event to be associated with your brand or business.
- List your event under a âCategory.â Using Categories will help your event show up in relevant searches.
- Use keywords in your event descriptions. Keywords arenât required, but help make sure your target audience find your event in their search results.
- Add sponsors and partners as co-hosts. If your event is a joint effort, adding the event to your partner and sponsors pages helps your event be discovered by users who follow them.
Schedule Important Posts Ahead of Time
Event planning is chaotic and stressful, and the first thing to slip when thereâs lots of fires to put out tends to be an eventâs social media promotion.
Neglecting your eventâs social media has a direct negative impact on attendance and social proof, neither of which you want.
Instead, use a social media scheduling tool like Buffer. Buffer is a social media scheduling tool that allows you to write and schedule posts for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more. You can include hashtags, images, videos, and links in your posts, and even integrate it into HeyAlfa to automate the boring parts of your event marketing.
Increase Visibility Using Social Media Ads
If you want as many eyeballs on your eventâs registration or Facebook Event page, you can always run some paid social ads directed at people who may be interested in attending your event.
Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads are two of the most powerful options available today, but Twitter Ads offer a lot of flexibility, and LinkedIn Ads is a great option for events targeting a professional community.
If youâre advertising on Facebook, you can choose the âEngagementâ objective, and optimize it by choosing âEvent Responses.â
This shows your ad to users who are most likely to interact with your event. Interactions are important for your event because when users interact with your ad their followers see that interaction, which helps increase awareness and excitement.
You can also Boost your event directly from the page, which is similar to a Sponsored Post on LinkedIn. Here, you can target by demographic, interest, location, custom audience, and more, but donât have all the targeting and bidding options available through the full ad manager.
If youâre advertising on Twitter or LinkedIn, choose the âWebsites Visitâ objective to drive people to your eventâs website or landing page.
Increase Word-of-Mouth Using Contests
Contests are a great way to gain new social media followers, increase engagement, and increase event attendance.
Keep things simple by hosting the contest on one social media platform, but promote it on all your other platforms, using your email list, and advertising when appropriate.
Choose contest prizes that are relevant to your event and generate conversation to get your followers excited about entering, and use an entry metric that helps boost your contestsâ visibility, such as commenting with an @ mention, retweet, or re-post.
Whether you offer free tickets, backstage passes, free meals, or just a free t-shirt and some buttons from your event, everyone loves the adrenaline rush they get from the chance at winning something for free.
How to Increase Event Attendance Starting Today
Promoting your event on social media is one of the best ways to help people learn about your event and show them why they donât want to miss out.
By starting early, regularly publishing creative updates, using scheduling tools to help you manage your workload, and using contests and ads to drive extra engagement, you can use social media to boost event attendance and increase awareness and excitement about your event, no matter what kind of event it is.
Do you have any favorite tricks to increase event attendance? Tell us on Twitter!
