Hess Marketing BlogThink It Up!

Whether you need to work with organizers, generate buzz, or share post-party photos, social media should be a primary tool for event planning. With the power to share comes the ability to spread the word, increase awareness, and accomplish your goals.

 

Step1: PLAN

As with any event, the first step is to plan. This goes beyond the simple logistics – it’s about locations, agendas, and the people that will help you make it happen. Whether you’re inviting people over for a small BBQ or you’re planning a bigger event, you need to plan it right.

Step2: ORGANIZING & INVITING

This is different than promotion. Invite key guests, speakers, family, and whoever else is important to the success of your gathering, conference, or party.

• Facebook:
Invite people. Create a public event and invite everyone that has “liked” your page. Not only will this give people the logistics of when and where the event will be held, but this Facebook function includes a “wall” where people can post updates. This allows you to create a dialog and converse with donors. It also empowers supporters to invite other people to attend the event with them.
Share photos. In the days preceding the event, post photos of decorations, raffle prizes or any other items you think would entice people to join you at the event. Furthermore, you can also encourage attendees to take photos during the event and tag your agency in the post.
Update your status. This seems like simple advice, but Facebook is only a powerful social networking tool if you use it. Don’t forget to let people know what’s going on and consistently update the status on your page.

• Twitter:
Create a hashtag. A hashtag is found at the end of a tweet and is a phrase with a pound sign at the front of it. Why is this important? Hashtags make searching Twitter easier. Creating a hashtag is as simple as typing, nothing special needs to happen. Twitter will just highlight the hashtag and link all tweets that contain it. By creating a hashtag for your event, you can easily see what people are saying about it. Also, if you get enough people to tweet with your hashtag, it may become a “trending topic” and show up on the twitter homepage.
And as with Facebook, share photos of decorations, raffle prizes or any other items you think would encourage people to join you at the event. You need to connect with people that will attend the event.

• E-mail:
Use e-blast, newsletter to invite people.
Share the link to the event page (Facebook and website) from your e-mail signature line.

• Website Event:
Create an event badge and post it on your website home page. People can embed it in their blog sidebars or on their websites. Share the link to your landing page using a custom URL.

• Blog:
Use your blog to announce the event.
Create a special blog for big events.

Step3: PROMOTION

• Use Twitter. Live tweet during the event, connect with people.
• Encourage people to share how they feel about the event. Encourage them to “tweet” and “retweet” them and respond to their tweets.
• Use Facebook. Live stream, sharing pictures, memorable moments.
• E-Mail. Remind people just few days before the event
• Listen to your audience. Do people at the event complain about a specific speaker, the food or a lack of responsiveness? Ask for people’s feedback.

Step4: POST-EVENT

Contrary to what people think, the event is not over when everyone leaves. There’s still more to do to make sure the event leaves a great impression, especially if you intend to have future events or even an annual one.
• Thank the people who attended the event and all your fans on Facebook, Twitter and website/blog.
• Send a summary e-mail to all attendees with pictures. Send people to the Facebook page and your website that hosts that embedded content. The landing page should include calls to action to register for future events.
• Set up a survey form to capture evaluations from attendees. Google Documents supports simple forms at no charge. Publish the best comments as validation of the quality of your content. Here’s a simple form I use to gather feedback on my presentations. It took 10 minutes to set up.
• Continue to use the Twitter account and the Facebook page for updates and exchange with fans.

 

Have you used social media to promote or plan your event in the past? What do you think is the most useful tool?

Tags: Advertise, Blog, eblast, email, event, facebook, fans, Promote, Socail Media, social media, Twitter, website

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Event, Event planning, Facebook, internet marketing, Social Media, Social Media Optimization, Twitter. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.