How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Events
/0 Comments/in Corporate Events, Event Planning /by Courtney CoulombeHow to Use Social Media to Promote Your Events
Planit Events Inc. shares 4 tips on how you can use social media to promote your future events!
How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Events
Event planning and marketing go hand in hand. Without marketing, your event may not live up to its full potential. Living in 2022, the marketing world has a strong lean toward the digital side which comes with many challenges, however, once you have a grasp on using digital tools, they can come at ease and help you immensely in your event planning. As an event planner in the Edmonton and surrounding area for years, I have a few tips on using digital means to help promote your event, which I will share with you today. This blog’s focus will be on using social media to help promote your upcoming event!
Tip 1: Establish Social Media Accounts for the Event/Organization Early On
First things first, to promote on social media, you need to have social media channels. There are two ways of going about this:
- Social media channels for the organization
- Social media channels for the event
Sometimes it may be beneficial to use the social media channels for the organization as it already may be well established. By well established I mean:
- Steady growth in followers each month
- Post regularly
- Strong engagement with followers
Don’t worry, if you don’t have social media accounts set up for the event or organization it’s not too late. It’s best to set these accounts up as soon as possible so that you can start posting and gaining a social media presence among the right audience. There are four main platforms that I typically like to focus on depending on the audience and type of event which includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Each of these platforms provides great benefits however explore the idea of YouTube or even TikTok too if they are relevant for your event!
Need some more help deciding which platforms to use? Check out this great HubSpot article which outlines different platforms and their pros and cons!
Tip 2: Create a Social Media Plan in Advance
Ok, now that you’ve got your social media channels, the next thing to do is create a social media plan in advance. I recommend starting to post about the upcoming event months ahead, especially if you are looking for sponsors and exhibitors! Consider posting:
- Event information (who, what, where, when, why)
- Reasons to attend the event
- Attendee information
- Exhibitor information
- Sponsor information
- Highlight special guests attending or keynote speakers
- Highlight sponsors
- Registration information
- Promotion (ticket pricing etc.)
Use your social media channels to bring awareness to your event, share the benefits of attending your event, information about the event, and much more. It’s important to share information in advance, for example, if the last day to purchase tickets is May 10, ensure you give your audience plenty of notice!
What I like to do is create a calendar using a spreadsheet to help you organize your posts. Are you going or post 1x a week or 4x a week? You can track all of this information on your spreadsheet.
Tip 3: Use a Scheduling Tool
I can’t stress this enough, but using a scheduling tool will save you so much time! Scheduling tools usually come at a cost of $10+ per month depending on the capabilities you would like included. Instead of trying to remember to create your post and share it across your platforms multiple times a week, you can schedule a few hours at the beginning of each month or an hour or two a week to schedule out in advance. I prefer scheduling for a month in advance. This frees up a lot of my time so I can focus on planning and executing the event. If I ever have any last-minute announcements to make I can quickly add them in.
Using a scheduling tool not only saves you time, but it saves you the stress of forgetting to post and messing up the social media plan you made in advance.
Tip 4: Evaluate Engagement & Find Key Takeaways
Just like it’s important to evaluate your event to find out what worked and what didn’t work, it’s just as important to do this with your social media. (Keep an eye out for the next blog this month as I’ll be sharing ideas on how to evaluate your event) It’s important to try out different ideas and methods to see which creates more engagement with your audience. This way, you can put your effort into what works for your event and not waste time on what doesn’t. It’s best to test new ideas over at least the span of a month to help you really gauge engagement. So how do you measure engagement?
- How many likes is your post getting?
- Are there any comments? If so, what are they?
- Are people sharing, re-tweeting, or saving the post?
- Is your channel gaining more followers?
I’ve been in the events industry for over a decade now and each year new waves of promotion types come about. It’s important to stay on top of trends and evaluate what works best to promote your event. If you have any questions about planning your upcoming event or you need a helping hand, feel free to reach out!
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