The Social Media Checklist for Event Promotion

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories, you tell”  -Seth Godin (American Author)

Talking about stories, when did you last create a Snapchat story? Or updated your status on Facebook or WhatsApp? Or uploaded a nice picture of yourself on Instagram?

No, this piece of writing does not intend to push you to put some content on your social media handles but just to remind you that with every final click on that upload button, you tell a story or at least an anecdote from your life to the world. Some people may or may not like that tale, some may judge your anecdote or some may feel jealous of your beautiful fable but for a small amount of time, you are catching their attention.

Where am I going with all this?

As a marketer, what is the basic purpose of your highly creative ad-campaign designed for your upcoming event in the town? Your event’s advertisements must catch the eyeballs of your audience. Right? And social media can really help you in telling your event’s story that people will pay attention to.

In a world of 7-7.5 billion people, there are already more than 3.3 billion social media users. It means that almost half of the world is already getting touched by social media. In such an environment, one simply cannot afford to leave any of the below-mentioned checkboxes empty before going all done and dusted with the social media marketing plan of one’s upcoming super exciting event:

• Choose your Channels

Different social media platforms can be used to promote different types of events. For example, Snapchat can be used for promotion of any kind of event that will appeal to young crowd like a DJ night or a beach party as it is the most used platform by teenagers, whereas Linkedin on the other side is more of a professional social network which can be used for events like conferences, workshops, and conclaves. Similarly,

1. Facebook: You can easily post event online on your facebook page, post paid ads and ads through messages.
2. Instagram: Brands’ favorite channel for social media marketing through creative images.
3. Twitter: Promotional content in small doses like creative one-liners can serve as teasers of the event which can create excitement.

• #hashtags_are_important

Create a short, catchy and creative hashtag for your event. It can be a pun, a single word, a phrase or anything but very long and boring. And be consistent with your hashtag. Do not just use it for social media promotion but use it in your hard posters, promotional emails, and other marketing material.

Encourage people to use your hashtag. Create a contest, like asking people to put their innovative and creative pictures with your nearby event hashtags, and incentivize the participants accordingly. This helps in creating a lot of buzz.

• Update Personal Profiles

As an event manager, one needs to own the event so much so that one’s any social media presence should not be without event hashtags and the event web links. Ask all the event organizers to update their social profiles by:

1. Updating profile pic: Use watermarks and add logos to the profile picture. Or decide a common theme to be followed by all. For example, if there is an awareness workshop against breast cancer, then all organizers can go for a display pic with pink ribbon.
2. Tell “About us”: Do not forget to mention the event details in the “About” section of personal profiles and event pages.
3. Link all social media channels: Link all the event posts on different channels with each other by providing a link to all the social media handles.

• Selling Tickets Online

There are so many platforms available online which will not only sell your event’s tickets but will also play a role in the promotions. These can help you by suggesting the best offers and discounts that you can offer to increase your ticket sales and also providing customers the best deals online.

Do not forget to provide the links or QR codes in your social media posts and pictures from where interested mass can book their tickets for the event. Be aware that these services mostly work on a commission basis and some may charge you heavily. Hence, it is advised that you make your budget first keeping in mind the target collection and then take a decision on ticket pricing and promotions.

• Search Engine Optimization

You can call your marketing successful when your event is attended by people who are first-timers and explorers. So many people go for upcoming events near me or things to do in my city today in their web searches every day and if at that moment, your event does not show up in the result list, you can miss out on getting the attention of so many potential buyers.

For optimizing your promotional content on search engines, you can use various SEO and content creation tools. But as discussed earlier, you have to keep in mind the return on investment that you will make on these tools for promotions.    

• Go Live

Use live video feature on various platforms. Ask people to go live and capture behind the stage action of the event. It creates excitement among the potential audience as they find an element of surprise as well as enhanced engagement.

• Use Influencers

As we all are aware that social media is creating new celebs every day. People gain popularity due to their talent on social media. And many such talented people can be found in every town nowadays. These celebs are called influencers. They have a huge fan following on the internet. They can really help you in promoting your event in a very small amount on social media as compared to Bollywood actors or Cricket stars. This can prove to be a very smart investment.

• Measure

“You can’t improve what you can’t measure”

As an event promoter, you should always keep a measure of what worked and not. What kind of channel was most visited or what was the engagement rate. You should also measure your sales and ROI and of course the satisfaction level of the event attendees. These measurements will help you in strategizing and improving the social media marketing of your next event.  

In the end…

Any marketing plan will not be successful unless you know your audience. Selling combs to baldies may look nice on paper but can prove to be very foolish in reality. Hence, target the right people, choose correct channels and don’t make false promises to your customers, rest everything will fall into place.