How to use Social Media for Special Events
By Anne Leonard
With summer right around the corner, the upcoming season is prime time for special events. Whether you’re launching an exciting product, hosting a networking event or having a July 4th cookout, knowing how to market your event on social media is key for your brand. Here’s how you can market your brand on social media before, during and after the event.
Before
Get the buzz going for your special event by making sure people know when it’s happening ahead of time. Make sure to plan ahead and give yourself time to market the event well in advance. For instance, you should create a unique hashtag that’s specifically for your event. When you start to use it in your marketing efforts, you’re able to track conversations across media platforms as well as open the invitation for others to start talking about your special events, too.
Even word-of-mouth strategies, such as people sharing that they just purchased tickets, will work wonders, but there also needs to be enough time for them to work. Make your tickets available for purchase at least 30 days prior to the event. In addition, you can host giveaways on social media to grow the buzz even more before leading up to your event (Learn more about hosting Instagram giveaways here.)
During
Now that you’ve spread the word about your event, the work is over, right? Wrong. Using social media during your special event is just as important. From live-tweeting about the event to posting live videos, social media platforms make this stage of marketing simpler than ever. From using Instagram Stories to Facebook Live, you can essentially give your audience front-row seats to the event in real-time, which engages your audience even further. More importantly, make sure you talk up your hashtag and use it in all of your posts. In addition, you should repost and comment on attendees posts from your event to spark up conversation. While doing so, you’re also networking with others. It’s a win-win strategy!
After
If you effectively used social media before and during your special event, you should have a collection of tweets, photos and videos from people who attended. This precious, organic content is great material that you can use in future marketing efforts. Collect the content, credit the person, and share it across your social media channels. The ultimate goal? Your audience will be driven to your website.
You can also continue responding to people who tagged your event in two ways: sincerely thank them for coming and fill them in on details for your next event.
