If you’re having an event – a presentation, a seminar, a party, etc – the best way to get people to know about it is through social media. While not everyone is connected through social media, the majority of people belong to at least one of these services. Even those who don’t have their own social media connection are likely to hear about your event from people who are connected. Plus, social media offers free marketing for your event. You can’t beat that scenario.
Here are a few ways you on how to use social media to promote your event.
Facebook Promotion
Through Facebook, you can create a Facebook Event, a tool designed to let you promote your gathering to the community. If your organization already has a fan page, you can invite those fans to the event easily through this tool. You can also encourage people to comment on the event. Additionally, you can send invitations to people through Facebook or you can post the invite on your profile so anyone who visits your page will see the information. Make sure to have an RSVP option, too. Then if someone is going to attend their RSVP shows up on their profile page and is viewed by everyone they are “friends” with through the website.
Twitter Promotion
Twitter is a good place to let people know about your event. However, since you are limited in tweet length you should link your post back to a website or the Facebook Event page where people can get more information. Twitter works well as a way to update attendees about the event and to build buzz around the event with your posts.
If you want Twitter to be used during your event, make sure to promote your hashtag so people can easily find others communicating about the same event. You can put this on any handouts or promotional information to make sure attendees know it.
Other Avenues
In addition to Facebook and Twitter, you can use plenty of other social media services to promote your event. If you have images from a past event, upload those to Flickr as well as to your Facebook Event page. If you have a Linkedin account, this is a great venue for promoting professional events. Not only will the people you are linked to see the information but if any of them choose to attend then the information will also be seen by their network.
Keeping Them Posted
Regardless of the social media venues you choose, there are two important ways you want to use them in the promotion.
First, you want to create a Save the Date notice. This allows your event to get marked on potential attendees calendars and that is crucial if you want people to attend.
Second, you want to send out reminders a couple of days before the actual event. You can do this through a variety of social media services.
By making sure you do these two things, you are going to get the attention of possible attendees through social media and, hopefully, ensure your event’s success.
Author Bio
This was a guest post by John from EEF Venues, providers conference and event venues in London, Warwickshire and Bristol.
The use of social media for the promotion of events is indeed great. However, it has to be made sure that the target audience will be hit by having the posts. Otherwise, it will not be of any help at all.
Kath Chipper recently posted..Juno Media now a Recommended Agency
That’s right Kath, aside from promoting thru Social Media you should be familiar with your circle of connections from which will most likely be of interest so that you can make sure that you will have a productive promotional strategy.
Nice article. Social Media is increasingly playing an important role in the promotion of our events and that impact will continue to grow. John mentioned in the other avenues section about content and its’ delivery. This is I believe one of the main benefits of Social Media. It is the perfect way to deliver promotional content. I’ve added a link to a blog which covers a Content Marketing Strategy to add a bit more detail to John’s ideas.
http://www.gallusevents.co.uk/2012/10/content-marketing-strategy-for-events/
Thank you for your comment William. Thank you also for sharing additional ideas that covers other strategies aside from social media.