Organising an event? Engage your audience as early as possible before it starts with these social media tips.
Get Your Event Trending Early
As any Event Organiser knows, a successful event requires more than simply booking a venue, arranging speakers and making tickets available. To take an event from the initial concept to a stand-out occasion is no mean task. It requires lots of hard work and lots of marketing.
When it comes to driving attendance, hype and engagement, social media is an invaluable tool. But making the best use of social media to make get your event buzzing means knowing what to post, when to post and where to post it, in order to reach as many potential attendees as possible.
Start the Buzz Before Your Event
Research undertaken by Buffer showed that nearly as many people are talking about an event on Social Media before it actually happens, as they are during it. Make the most of this and get the word out in as many ways as possible, as early as possible. That way, you can use the anticipation you’ve created to drive ticket sales.
Here are 5 simple ways that you can use the build up to your next event to prime and engage both potential attendees and those who’ve registered.
1. Build a Buzz Around Your Lineup
Anticipation and excitement are your watchwords. Just tweeting out a list of names isn’t going to create much excitement about your speaker lineups or special guests. So, think of ways you can reveal who they are creatively.
Countdowns until your big reveals work well, especially if there are any big industry names at your event. Share creative reveals of lineups or special guests, or use teaser videos and images to increase excitement – the more interesting, the better.
2. Make use of Early Bird Offers and Deadlines for Registration
Post as often as you can about early bird deadlines and the registration windows. Once you’ve got committed event-goers signed up, you want them to convince their friends to join them at the event.
You can help motivate these potential attendees by using urgency to drive ticket purchases, posting whenever early bird ticket sales or registrations are about to end and even posting how many tickets you have left – but only if you are running out!
3. Make Full Use of the Fear of Missing Out
No one likes to think that they have missed something amazing. Fans who aren’t sure if they can attend the event in person have serious fear of missing out. You can create a buzz and allay their fears by creating new opportunities for them to attend the event.
Discount codes for social media followers work well, as do contests for tickets. You could even offer some VIP access giveaways. Sharing posts is a good way of qualification for giveaways to expand your reach.
4. Share Preparation and Behind the Scenes Pictures
Start sharing out pics of your preparations a long time before the event starts. Putting together event goodies? Take a picture and share it. Looking behind the stage? Share that too.
People love to feel they have an inside view of what’s going on, and it’s a great way to boost conversation and engagement. These brief glimpses can help make a personal connection with possible attendees, you and your speakers.
5. Promote the use of Social Media at the Event, Before the Event
Before your delegates attend, they need to know that they can post about what they are enjoying at your event. Have your #Hashtags ready well in advance of your event, and make sure you add them to all your posts. You want to be trending long before delegates arrive, and you also want to make sure they know to post during your event as well.
Use a Twitter Wall at your event, and post about it beforehand. This shows that you take your attendees posts and engagement seriously, and that you want them to talk about what’s going on. It increases the personal connection between attendees, your organisation and your speakers.
Get Excited About Your Event
The important takeaway from these tips is you need to be excited about your event, your speakers and the content you will be delivering. If you’re not excited, how can you expect anyone else to be?
Build this excitement by sharing your event as early as possible. It’s the best way to create the enthusiasm you need to drive your ticket sales. Also, make sure you retweet posts from your excited attendees, and answer their questions.
Social media is a relatively cheap marketing tool, and your attendees posts are free marketing for you. Treat them well, engage them and treat them to some goodies, and they will be your greatest advocates to make your event the best it can possibly be.
