Using Social Media to Make Your Event Sing

You are planning an event and you will either deliver an event that delivers an amazing experience to everyone involved or you deliver an event that is, to say the least, not memorable. Of course, your event is going to deliver, and then some!

Your event should be the only one that they want to attend

When it comes to presenting effective and memorable events, you don’t want to go for quantity alone. You are going to want to really concentrate on the quality of the event and the quantity will follow on its own. There are many elements that go into making a successful event and you need to be aware of all of them and to ensure that each and every one is top shelf and really effective.

First of all, you want to make sure that the people who are a part of your event (those working the event as well as those who are attending the event) are a mix of people with some decent amount of synergy. Your objective with this is that your people have a strong enough basis with which to connect with one another. In other words, they need to have enough in common that the connect between them doesn’t end when your event ends.

How do you accomplish this?

One of the most effective and quickest ways to make sure that all of the elements of your event are aligned is through social media. Social media will allow you to reach a large number of people quickly. Of course, it is critical that you remember to use the most effective social media channels for your particular business and your particular type of event. Not only do you want to be able to reach people quickly and effectively but you also want to gather the right people. At the same time, you want to create a buzz for your event that will make people want to be there and want to tell their friends and colleagues about your event. So, where do you start?

• Obtain the social media handles of your targeted attendees: Whether your tickets to the event actually cost money or they are free of charge, you should still issue tickets for your event. It is a way for you to obtain contact information from your attendees. In effect, it is evidence that they have opted in. Having that information will make it easy for you to keep track of them and to start to build a relationship with those connections. Of course, there is a chance that some of those people will not continue to interact with you; however, if you are given the opportunity to develop relationships with any of them, it is worth your time and effort.
• Create a buzz with social media discussions: You can interact using various social media channels. Twitter might be a good choice for you because you have a 140-character maximum (including spaces). It is a good way to force you to communicate in a meaningful way that is concise at the same time. You can effectively create a wonderful buzz on Twitter and you can reach many people in a short amount of time. The more excited you are about your event, the more excited your online connections will be as well.
• Use a question-and-answer format: Since you are running an event, it is probably safe to assume that your event will feature a presenter. If that is the case, you should take advantage of the situation by setting up a Q&A session with that person or those people. It will be very interesting for the attendees and for the presenter(s). It is a wonderful way to create excitement that can envelop your event.
• Make sure that you involve as many people as possible in the interactions: The more people you can involve, the more lively the discussions will be and the more exciting the experience will be for everyone involved. That is another great way to create a lot of buzz.
• When it comes to your marketing materials, use your testimonials: Your testimonials are a wonderful tool and you can include them in your marketing materials when you promote your event. You may be surprised at how much power they have. When other people sing your praises and the praises of your business, it is very powerful and very inspiring.
• Gather the influencers: Influencers are extremely important when it comes to creating a buzz. You should gather influencers and make them an important part of your interactions. There is no doubt that your attendees will notice and will want to be a part of your event experience.
• Poll your attendees: Whether you have been running events for a long time or you are a novice, you can always learn something new from other people. If you want to know something, sometimes it is just as simple as asking. Ask your attendees what they like about the events that they have attended. Maybe you can use some of that information to improve upon what you are planning to do with your own event.
• Have a plan for what to do after your event: Your event maybe the most wonderful thing since sliced bread but if you don’t follow-up after the event and keep plying your attendees with information, you may lose them. That is easily preventable.

Conclusion

Creating event buzz is extremely important. Otherwise, you will put all of that time and effort into your event and then nobody will know about it and nobody will attend. Make sure that your event has your brand and your voice clearly etched on it everywhere. You have a clear path ahead of you. Now, go make some noise!