How Social Media Can Boost Your Event Promotion

In this blog, we’re going to look at how social media can boost your event promotion, think of it as a step-by-step guide to increase your reach and promotion.

Social media has dramatically changed the way we interact with each other and the majority of your potential event attendees are likely active on one or more social platforms. So, how can you tap into this ever-changing digital landscape to help your event stand out?

The first rule of any social media engagement is ‘to find’ your target audience. There’s no point creating content for TikTok if your target audience is on LinkedIn. Research which platforms your target audience most frequently uses. Once you know this, the key is to build social media promotion into every stage of your event. Below is some guidance on how to use social media to boost your event promotion:

Pre-event: create the buzz!

It’s time to begin to build the buzz around your event.

Check your look

It’s important to check that all your social media profiles and cover images are up to date. Now’s the time to revisit and refresh in preparation for the event campaign. Are you planning any special branding? Ensure you present a cohesive, professional look.

#besteventever

Create a unique hashtag to use on all your event social media. This buzzword not only gives people an easy-to-use search tag, it also can create a community.  Encourage your audience to use it. Put the hashtag into your profile descriptions. Importantly, make it:

  • Short
  • Unique
  • Memorable

But also make sure to do your research to check nobody else is using it or it’s not related to anything you wouldn’t want connected to your event!

Plan

Plan a range of posts, videos, and stories across your chosen social media platforms in the months/weeks/days running up to the event. Think about ‘early bird’ offers, countdowns, teasers and exclusive insights to build excitement and anticipation. This drip-feed of announcements will help to keep your content fresh and your followers interested on what’s coming.

Amplify

To increase your reach and follower count you need to amplify your message.

  • Get in touch with your sponsors, suppliers, speakers, and presenters and encourage them to share your posts and create their own to engage their followers.
  • Long-form content created for your website should be linked from your social profiles and posts, encouraging people to visit your site to get more information, read blogs, watch videos or listen to podcasts. Use a free tool like Linktree to do this for multiple web pages.
  • If you have the budget, explore creating social media ads to further amplify you reach. Create your target market and set a budget over a period. Test and measure the results for take-up. You can also ‘boost’ posts, too. A boost is a social post or ad that you add some advertising money to expand its reach or increase engagement which is done via the platform such as LinkedIn or X.
  • When someone books their place or buys a ticket, ask them how they found out about the event. This will feed into your promotional strategy and help you understand which promotional tools are landing. At the same time, prompt them to share with their own networks, and make it easy for them with a pre-prepared message using your unique hashtag:

I’ve just booked my ticket to the best event ever. There’s a great lineup of speakers and a few tickets left, don’t miss out! 

[link] #besteventever 

  • Host a giveaway of merchandise or free tickets for followers posting relevant content using your hashtag.
  • Did you run a similar event last year? Share your highlights from the last event. Images of attendees enjoying themselves help to give people a taste of what they can expect and build anticipation.

During the event: engage and inform

Dedicated team

Ensure a member of your team is responsible for posting throughout the day(s), and updating your feeds with timely, relevant information and messaging. Involve the attendees and speakers, and document all the key moments.

Attendee-generated

Encourage your attendees, exhibitors, and speakers to generate their own content.

Live streams

Social media livestreams for interactive screens and wall displays. These can also be used to put out important messages throughout the day.

Large or small screens work well in different locations. How about a screen at the coffee and tea station? Live streams can work well for on-site, hybrid and virtual events.

Go-to resource

Check-in with your speakers before the event and collate any links to further information that attendees will find useful. Post these out timed to coincide with the presentation, for example: links to recent research, books and websites.

Keep Sharing

Ensure that you have good event coverage for those who couldn’t attend. This will help build up an eager audience for your next one.

Post-event 

Give thanks

It’s important to thank everyone who took part in the event. Not only the attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and speakers, but also your team.

Share the highlights

Share your ‘event highlights and key takeaways that resonated with your attendees and speakers, but also ask them to share theirs, too.

Get feedback

It’s important to improve and innovate and you can use social media to promote a post-event survey or poll and collate testimonials. Share the feedback you receive and ideas for innovation and improvement. If something went wrong (and stuff does go wrong!) share your learning moments.

Learn

Throughout your social media promotion schedule, keep connecting with others and always try to respond to comments. Positive and negative comments are equally important. Nothing is perfect. Always lead with a positive approach, and if something has gone ‘pear-shaped’ talk about how you’ll learn from the challenge.

If you receive a complaint, always respond with concern and humility, and invite them to contact your team via your official email or phone number to resolve the issue. Respond no further publicly even if they do. This shows your followers that you take complaints seriously.

Sow the seed

With the momentum from the build-up and execution of your event, keep the buzz going and lay the groundwork to promote your next event. Seed ideas and concepts, ask for comments and, using your channel analytics, further refine your social content to extend your reach.

And, finally, keep connecting. Like events, social media is, before all else, for and about people. Fun and flexible, with good preparation and a sound plan, social media can work wonders in promoting your event.

We’ve also recently posted ‘The importance of using marketing for event promotion’ blog for how to utilise marketing fully for events.