How Event Planners Can use Social Media for Event Promotion

Social media is now one of the dominant marketing methods for just about every type of business imaginable. As an event or meeting planner, you should be utilizing Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn to promote your next event.

Social Media is not free – it requires time to set up social media profiles and to promote them. You have to understand your targeted demographics. Your event app must be designed around thes ability to integrate with social media. The optimum platform to reach them and don’t forget about email marketing. You can utilize social media to connect with targeted followers and then offer a promotion to capture their email address, which can then be used for downstream marketing.

Six Tips for Event Planners to Leverage Social Media

1) Generate a Following on the right platform

Recognize Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook have different features and capabilities for generating connections and then marketing to them. Build a following on the right platform and recognize this will not happen over night and that you have to engage with these Followers and carefully add event promotion to your “conversation” with your Followers.Stay in touch with your followers and give them option to interact through your mobile conference app.

2) Sending the right message

Be aware sharing your personal and political views via Social Networks is not a good idea for a business – you risk turning off some of your Followers and you should avoid sensitive topics, which can alienate some individuals.

3) Avoid noise

If you are using Facebook for a promotion be aware this typically involves using a third party application and you need to have a strong grasp of Facebook’s targeting methodologies. And, be aware, in some cases (B2B marketing) Facebook may be the wrong platform and you will be much better off using LinkedIn as your social media platform.

4) Follow the trend:

Leverage and take a hard look at promotions that have been done by your direct competitors. We aren’t advocating plagiarism by any means; but it’s important to understand. Know what is being done in your market in terms of ongoing social media marketing activities. And, don’t assume these promotions done by your competitors are valid and work. Some of them may know less about social media marketing for events that you or your organization. Take a hard look at their followers and connections. Use your event planning app to stay on top of trend.

5) Learn from mistake

Understand that you may have some trial and error with social media marketing processes. Not all promotions will work right from the start. You be prepared to spend small portion of your overall marketing budget on a test promotion and measure your marketing ROI. It’s important to test and retest.

6) Explore opportunites

If possible integrate your Social Media Accounts with your mobile event app – this will save you time and leverage your investment with the Mobile App. Not all vendors offer integration with Social Media; and, if you are just learning how to use social media you may not need to do this early on.

Social media offers a wonderful way to market your brand and/or event. But, it’s not a one size fits all marketing and it will take time to build up a following and you need to carefully select the right platform.