Do you think promoting events is an easy task??
No. Because there’s a lot of things to do when it comes to event planning. Many event organizers place less time on event promotion using social media. But our goal is to get as many people as possible to attend, right? Then, Social media can be a powerful tool to gain exposure.
If you want to get a huge success in your event, then you have to plan well for every little step on social media.
While there are traditional and other methods for promoting events, social media has successfully proved itself as an incredibly powerful tool to boost event attendance. And in this digital era, you need to be very strategic to promote your event on social media to the right audience for strong social bonds.
When promoting an event, the effective use of social media marketing is the key to spread the buzz & awareness. With several platforms to leverage, you can promote your event to various segments of your audience where they live online. This is an excellent way to reach your potential audience and create hype about your upcoming event. As compared with traditional forms of advertising, the results from social media promotion are particularly impressive, and the cost is also relatively little.
So, if you want to gain the maximum hype and coverage for your event, follow these step-by-step guide to promote your event using social media:
Define your objectives
First of all, you have to decide what you can do to make this particular event more manageable? Choose the right social platforms, and make the best use of each platform.
You need to think carefully about your primary objectives and separate approach and strategies for each social network accordingly because some of your plans might not work for all social media platforms. So, be serious and keep all those things in mind.
Here are some questions that might help you to set your objectives:
- How do you want to promote your event using social media? What is it you want to achieve from all of your marketing efforts?
- Can you expand your social networking with your current followers and increase sales leads?
- Can you utilize individual social platforms in the long-term?
- Do you have a strategic budget for social media promotions that increase the ROI?
- Do you have the necessary analytics and social media marketing tools to supervise your progress?
According to your target audience, select the right social platform
Depending on your business, industry, and target audience, social platforms can be different based on the audience you want to target. Before selecting the right social platforms for your upcoming event, you have to do some research on your potential attendees and determine the platforms they are active on.
Likewise, all the promotions must align with your custom event page, and lead to bookings of the event. If you creatively use social media for your event marketing, you will get the best result.
Some speciality of the leading social media platforms
Facebook: In this platform, you can create a separate page for events, so you can easily engage followers and share your event updates among them. If your promoted posts have a creative, catchy image or short informative videos, it will surely generate more leads.
Instagram: This is one of the image-based social platforms where the brand can engage its audience through an image. Here, you can add stories of your event so your audience can directly go to your event page.
Twitter: In this platform, to create buzz before and during the event, you have to post your event with a unique event hashtag. With a short and intriguing caption, use a short and catchy caption with the URL that links to your event booking page.
YouTube: After Facebook, YouTube is the most powerful platform to promote your events. You can make attractive pre-event promotional videos and upload them on youtube. During the event, you can also boost audience engagement through YouTube live streaming.
LinkedIn: This platform is excellent for B2B promotions and business networking. This channel is most useful for broadcasting event news and announcements. It helps in networking with hundreds of potential attendees and opens up the door for sponsors, patrons, guests.
Snapchat: If your event is for teenagers, then Snapchat can be the best platform because it is very appealing to young ones. An interactive presence on Snapchat may also help to boost your event promotion.
Optimize your Social Media profiles
Each social media platform offers a multitude of possibilities to promote events. Therefore, you need to decide which platform best suits your target group, & define your event advertising strategies as per the need.
Some tips:
- Use the correct image sizes for social media
- Make your profile pictures consistent across all platforms
- Don’t use irrelevant photos and inappropriate messages
- Make sure your social media credentials are continuous across all networks
- Link your other social media profiles with each other and check your links are not broken
- Request for comments or recommendations from friendly customers or clients
- Show your best content with pinned articles
- At a time, focus on a relevant platform
Create a detailed content plan
Image, video, live broadcast, quote, hashtag, and infographic are different types of content essential during the promotion of your event on social media. You should always look for high-quality content to promote your event. Your objective of the content should be central to delivering value to the potential event attendee. A high-quality error-free content attracts and retains a clearly defined audience. By creating such content, you can improve the promotion of your event.
Post Regularly to build an audience
If you are interested in creating a broad range of audiences for your event, then you must post on your primary social platforms consistently. You must post regularly and have a proactive account, so your profile shows regular activity and provides the right message and will encourage people to stay connected with you.
Create an online Poll
You can create a poll by asking questions about the event theme or an exciting feature to add to the upcoming events with a few options. In Facebook newsfeed/timeline, Tweet compose-box, or Snapchat-Instagram stories, you can easily create the poll.
Event Promotion through different social media paid ads
Creating Ads on Facebook will help to expand your promotional reach. Here you can target a specific demographic of the audience so that you can get better potential attendees. If another social platform like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube has a better demographic fit for your ads, then you can also advertise your event on those platforms.
Things you need to include in your ads:
- A visually appealing image or a short video
- Engaging post text
- The headline should be unique and eye-catchy
- Must consist of direct Call-to-Action (For example – “Click here to Buy Tickets Now”)
Use a Snapchat Geofilter
Every day, over 180 million people use this platform. The easiest way to use Snapchat for events is to create a geofilter for your attendees. If you only spend an hour, you can connect attendees and notify potential ticket buyers. To create a geofilter, you must submit a work of art to Snapchat for review.
Create Promotional Videos
Video is the most attractive way to enhance your event in minutes. Create and post promotional videos to generate interest, emphasize the value of participation, give insight into audience expectations, and review a past event. Publish your videos on YouTube and share the same video on your Facebook.
Conduct Free ticket Contests
It’s a fact that people always love free things. You can induce interest among people by offering a few free tickets.
This will help you create a hype before the event. It is one of the common ways to invite people.
For example, hold a contest, ask people to sign up on the event page or ask them to share your event on relevant social channels using the event-specific hashtag to enter the contest.
Share memories of past events on social media
Gather photos and video clips of your previous event and post them on various social networks and tag the audience in the image if possible! It is also a great way to make a good impression on the audience that is most likely to attend your next event.
Final Thoughts
When promoting your event on social media, it’s about getting in touch with your future participants. The more you make them feel appreciated, the more they feel obligated to share your content. Try posting fascinating new information about the event ahead of time to surprise the public, but be sure to generate interest. Be smart while promoting your event, and you will discover that the incredible power of social media pays you incredible dividends.
Satendra Kashyap is an investigative journalist for Times of India, My brief writing career comprises of writing short articles for online magazines and blogs, writing features for local monthly magazines and developing marketing material for offshore clients. I’ve experience in creating engaging yet optimized content for search engines.