Using Social Media To Promote A Corporate Event
If you’re running a corporate event, you want to make sure that your event goes as well as possible. This includes getting the right audience to the event, and may involve the need for ticket sales, sponsorships and commercial partners to make your event work. Whatever, kind of event you’re arranging, you want to ensure that your event is promoted as effectively as possible to make sure you build brand awareness, and attract the right audience – whether they are sponsors or attendees.
Social media is completely ubiquitous in the modern era, and therefore your target market, be they sponsors or attendees, are using the various platforms – it’s just a case of finding the right people in the right places. In this article I’ll go through some top tips for promoting your event using social media.
- Using social advertising
Social advertising is a cost effective way of generating awareness in your event. You can use Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to find a highly relevant audience at a fraction of the price of Google AdWords. The key is to know who to target, and how to target them. Tools like Facebook’s Audience Insights can really help with this as it can tell you what else your target market talk about and engage with, as well as who they are on the platform – giving you some great ideas for targeting sets.
- Creating a buzz at the event
One way to use social media to promote your event successfully is to create a buzz at the event so that the attendees share a lot of content during the occasion. There are a number of ways to do this – from having a particular hashtag for the event on Twitter, to tweetboards so that people can see their tweets, to having great entertainment that people will talk about. How many times have you been to a corporate event that’s an absolute snorefest? Why not shake things up a little and hire a band, or even something quirkier, like a falconry display or the magician Oliver B? Both of these options are highly interactive and real talking points. Capturing this on video will also be brilliant for your marketing plan – this build excitement for your future and boosts engagement. With 4 billion hours of YouTube videos being watched worldwide, it’s no surprise 76% of marketers are prioritizing this medium. Don’t get left behind!
- Managing your community
Ensure that you manage your community on your social media profiles in the lead up to and during the event. This will mean you have a consistent level of messaging going out, all tied to the overall goal of what you’re trying to achieve with your event. Try to post on Facebook once a day, and 3 or 4 times a day on Twitter. The main thing though is to keep the content relevant, and not always try to just sell tickets! You should also make full use of Social Customer Service, which is a key factor in social media marketing, to provide support and make the event run smoothly.
- Empowering your staff
Your staff at the event can be the best ambassadors for what you’re trying to do. If you’re hiring an event space it may come with staff already, but if you’re using your own then teach them to Tweet and share your messaging leading up to and throughout the event. For specialist event or marketing staff, you could also look to hire in specialists and train them up exactly how you want them – there are plenty of recruitment companies that can help with this (think your standard Indeed, Hales Group, Monster, etc) or even specialist places like Treacle Events who can provide promo people at short notice.
At the end of the day, the best thing to do is to be creative. Make sure your social presence is consistent and that you use the advertising channels available, but your creativity will shine through in creating a strong event that people want to attend, and ultimately, talk about.