Social media is a great way to get the word out about your events, no matter what they are. But making the best use of social media during the event itself, can be difficult.
If you’re running events the best people to market those events are the people who are attending. Attendees are in a great position to talk about what they are learning, what’s going on and how impactful your conference or event is. But despite your best efforts, it can be difficult to get attendees to post on social media when they are in the middle of the event itself. On top of that, getting them to tag your event in, or use the right hashtags, is even harder.
However, there are easy ways to encourage your event attendees to share their great experience online, and that is using a social media wall for your event.
Getting started with Social Media or Twitter Wall
They are becoming more popular, but social media walls, like Social Sticker, are a great way of engaging your event audience in what’s going on around them, and to help promote your activity at the event itself. A social media wall consists of one or multiple screens which are live at your event, displaying posts, images or photos that are tagged with your event’s hashtag, on social networks like Twitter.
Most social media walls, like Social Sticker, display new posts in real time, but if you’re concerned about any tweet getting on the big screen in front of your delegates, you can moderate which posts are shown, so that you can screen out inappropriate messages, and highlight your favourite tweets.
Where do you place your twitter wall?
Most events place the social media walls on screens behind or to the sides of the stage. But they can also be used in the lobby as guests enter, or anywhere around the venue. They represent a great way to display questions for speakers, and reactions or highlights from the event in real-time.
Just seeing them is enough to encourage attendees to post, so that everyone who’s not at the event knows what they’re missing.
Making the best use of a social media wall at your event?
Most people like to see themselves or their posts displayed on the big screen. It’s fun to see their posts making it onto the big screen, and also helps delegates to feel that their views are being noticed. A social media wall is a great encouragement to people to post as the event is happening in front of them.
For event organisers, this not only increases the audience engagement, giving them an immediate feel of how the event is progressing, but it is also a fantastic way of trending on twitter, as the more posts you have, the higher you trend.
Is there a catch to having a social media wall?
The main things to remember are that social media can be a free for all, so moderating your wall is important. Also, your audience needs to know and use your preferred #hashtag for your event.
Social media walls, like Social Sticker will display posts and pictures that are tagged with your event’s hashtag — which means that your branded event hashtag needs to be visible, fun and memorable.
If your hashtag is catchy and prominent throughout the event, it’s a reminder for attendees to post and to include your brand if they were already planning on using social media.
Here are some ideas for getting your hashtag noticed.
1. Hashtag as Wifi network name or password
Most people at your event will want to make use of the WiFi in one way or another. Using your #hashtag as the network name or password reinforces it.
2. Add it to everyone’s delegate badge or sticker
Even if you can’t see your own, you can’t miss it on the name badges of everyone you meet!
3. Ask speakers to add it to all of their slides
This requires forethought and planning well in advance, but makes a huge difference
4. Make sure your hashtag and the social wall are mentioned before and after every session
The event moderator can be very useful for reminding delegates that they can tweet, but need to hashtag their tweets to get seen.
5. Add your hashtag to all of your printed materials, posters and collateral
Your hashtag should be part of your event branding so it should be visible on posters, flyers on the walls and in people’s hands
It’s likely that you will have a team member or volunteer at your event who is responsible for updating your official social media feeds, so make sure they are using your event’s hashtag in every single post as well. Additionally ask sponsors to use the hashtag as well. It’s a great way for them to get time with more attendees.
Social Sticker can really boost your event
The Social Sticker tweet platform will help you collect and display tweets about your event in real time. Giving you engagement analytics after the event, Social Sticker is the perfect option to make your event something special.
