Promoting an event on social media allows you to reach out and connect with attendees on a more personal level. With the right social media tools, you can effectively monitor the event’s progress and address all attendees’ concerns. Social media is an effective channel used to develop and execute an event marketing plan. Many companies and brands are using social media because it’s a relatively inexpensive way to spread the word about a company’s mission, products and events to a large number of consumers.
Before you get into setting up everything, think of event promotion like any other form of marketing. Consider what strategies you will use to get attendees to sign up/pay to attend your event, what social platforms will you use and most importantly understand the audience you are targeting. Set and track your performance throughout and have a solid plan on how you will promote your event from start to finish.
When you have the venue booked, timeline figured out, the décor decided upon, and the caterer ready to go. Now it’s time to get people in the room hence here is what you do to promote your event.
1 . Create An Event Page/Post On Meta/Instagram
If you’re going through the trouble of hosting an event, you want people to show up and, better yet, you want people to continue spreading the word about your business even after the event is over. Setting up an event post/page will help you sell your event to the right audience. Meta and Instagram have the ‘Add Event’ feature which allows you to set up everything effectively and as soon as you’ve created your event, Meta and Instagram will serve you a pop-up that reads, “Boost Your Online Event”. Click “Boost Event” to promote your event to new audiences.
2 . Post/Launch A Countdown On Your Stories
The Instagram and Meta story countdown sticker will help you run posts on your stories and this will help your audience engage further with the event that you are promoting.
When you share a story about an upcoming launch or event, you can add a countdown sticker that counts down to a date and time that you set. Your followers can then subscribe to your countdown event, which will send them a reminder when the time is up and your countdown is complete! When you set up the time of your countdown, you can either select the all day option where your countdown leads up to a day (the ticker will stop at midnight on the day you select).
If you’re counting down to a specific time of day, deselect the All Day option to set the hour and minute of your countdown. Once you’re happy with the look of your countdown sticker, tap done and you’re ready to share!
3 . Post Teasers With Necessary Details (Create Hashtag)
Since you are going to focus on awareness for the first few months of your event promotion, think of anything that gets in front of your target audience. Focus on teaser posts in the following ways;
- Post event teasers on websites and blogs.
- Create reels, videos and do lives to promote event.
- Sharing with social media groups.
- Sharing guest speakers, influencers and sponsors.
- Launching a landing post.
- Creating your event hashtags and branding.
- Sending announcement emails to current subscribers.
- Offering early bird discounts or perks.
4 . Host A Giveaway
Running a giveaway is a great way for increasing engagement and selling your event. Giveaways are an effective marketing channel to help grow your business, generate more leads and increase ticket sales. In order to maximize the success and participation of the promotion it is vital to take the steps in promoting the giveaway to reach the largest number of potential entrants that you can.
Letting your audience choose the competition prize (if not a ticket to the event) is like you run a mini competition. Doing this tip you can get more engagement on social media before the contest start. Promote your giveaway on different social platforms to increase awareness and reach around your event.
5 . Wrapping Up Your Event/Continue To Engage
Social media is about conversations and engaging with others. Reply to comments and replies, share anybody on Instagram tagging you into their stories, and consider integrating polls and Q&As into coverage to create posts that other attendees and those interested in the event can engage with. Always make sure you are using official event hashtags in these posts and tag the event on social media if the event has a profile!
After your event, remind everyone that it was a success or not because it wraps up your event on a positive note and sets a foundation for people to continue engaging with your brands services and products. Send your audience thank you messages or share a success post.
With the above tips, we cannot wait for you to successfully host and promote your next event!
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See you in the next blog!
