4 Ways to Promote Your Event Using Social Media
Social media is everywhere, and nearly everyone uses it. Moms surf parrot videos on Facebook while bored hipsters spend hours at the coffee shop constructing the perfect portrait of snark in 140 characters or less. It is more likely than not that your ideal audience utilizes social media and, as such, it is a fantastic way to promote your upcoming event.
Here are some tips to help you get started…
1. Create a Unique Hashtag
Creating a special hashtag for your event will help to boost engagement, increase social buzz, and could even boost attendance. Your hashtag should be short, sweet, and unique. Once you have it, use it everywhere you can—in tweets, your event’s website, your email signatures—just promote and promote it. Make sure to use the same hashtag across all social channels to build brand awareness. You’ll be able to watch what is trending around your event in real time and get relevant feedback in the process.
2. Use Photos of Past Attendees in Your Social Updates
If yours is a repeat event, you can leverage all the great photos you took at previous events. Audiences tend respond best to social posts containing images and what better way to show them what a good time they’d have at your event than showing what a good time people have already had there?
If you can, tag the past attendees in the pictures. This will encourage them to engage with the community and give them an opportunity to comment and talk about how much they learned or what a blast they had and how much they’re looking forward to attending again.
3. Share Behind-the-Scenes Visual Content
A great deal of work goes into planning and pulling off a top-notch event. Give a glimpse into this exciting and sometimes chaotic experience by sharing images and videos of the preparations going on.
Share stories of how you’re pulling everything together and don’t forget, mistakes and challenges happen. Be authentic and share the challenges you face and what steps you took to resolve them. It humanizes your brand and makes you more relatable.
4. Create a Facebook Event Page
Most people log into Facebook at least once a day. Make it easy for them to keep up with event news by creating an event page listing. Your event page is also a great place to encourage networking before the event. The convenience of an event page encourages sharing by attendees as well.
To help make your event a success, Facebook has added new tools such as targeted news feed ads and event insights to measure the effectiveness of your efforts. As the day of your event approaches, don’t forget to send out reminders to encourage people to RSVP on your event page.