4 Steps to Promote Your Events on Social Media
As an event planner, you know the importance of event marketing. You could plan the most amazing event in the world, but if you don’t have an effective way to spread the word about your event, no one will show up.
One channel that you may not have explored as much when it comes to event marketing is social media. You can use social media for events to connect with audiences far and wide and engage a variety of generations and demographics.
There's no magic recipe that will tell you how to promote an event on social media. But these five steps will provide a strong foundation for getting started with social media event promotions:
Determine your event audience.
Align your promotional materials and event brand.
Create an event promotion schedule.
Use the unique features of each platform to your advantage.
Recruit your supporters to help conduct event promotions.
1. Determine your event audience.
The first step of creating a powerful social media event promotion strategy is understanding your audience. Who are you trying to reach with your event? For example, you may be trying to connect with local college students, global working professionals, nonprofit donors, or prospective corporate partners.
Regardless of your target audience, it’s important to fully understand who you’re trying to connect with because this allows you to identify your audience members’ favourite social media platforms.
The best way to understand your audience is to create audience personas for the various types of people you are trying to attract to your event. A persona is a map or profile of your target audience’s demographic information and their motivations, personality, and much more. Taking the time to create these personas will help you tailor your marketing to your target audiences.
Here is a quick overview of how to build a marketing persona:
Determine the demographic information of the persona, like the name, age, gender, occupation.
Identify each audience segment’s pain points, interests, and motivation for why they would be attending your event.
Define what marketing channels your persona is most likely to use and what factors play into their purchasing decisions.
Once you have built out several attendee personas, you will be much better equipped to create a compelling social media marketing strategy for your event that resonates with your target audience.
2. Align your social media posts and event brand.
Your event’s brand communicates a lot about the event experience your attendee should expect to receive. All your promotional materials should be consistent in the way they look and the language they use.
Ensure your social media promotional materials reflect your event branding. This includes:
Graphics
Promo videos
Infographics
The tone you use in posts
Hashtags
Remember, you only get one chance to make a great first impression, so investing in outstanding branding will ensure your event stands out from the crowd.
4. Use the unique features of each social media platform to your advantage
Social media is one of the most effective ways to promote your event — not only does it allow you to capture and build an audience, but it comes at a low cost compared to other marketing channels. Leveraging multiple social media platforms to promote your event is the best way to spread the word to a wide audience.
Here are a few tips for promoting your event on the top social media platforms:
Instagram: This platform is image and video-focused. InitLive recommends using Instagram as a way to promote your event and event brand to a wider audience. Consider using Instagram stories, polls, and live streams to boost engagement with your audience.
Facebook: This platform remains the largest social media platform, making it an important channel for event promotion. Facebook is great for sharing live videos and posts to promote your ticket sales
Twitter: Twitter is perfect for short messages, making it a great platform for posting live event updates.
TikTok: This platform will allow you to connect with a younger audience and is also very visual-focused. This allows you to get creative and create buzz or trends around your event for new audiences.
By using the unique features of each social media platform, you can create a tailored social media marketing approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all strategy. This ensures that your social media posts are relevant and well-formatted, helping you engage your audience more effectively.
By using the unique features of each social media platform, you can create a tailored social media marketing approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all strategy. This ensures that your social media posts are relevant and well-formatted, helping you engage your audience more effectively.
Investing in a well-thought-out and multi-channel event social media strategy will ensure that your event attracts enough attendees and volunteers and ensure your event brand has staying power in the long run. Remember, brand consistency and understanding your audience will ensure you stand out from your competition. Now, it's your turn to start planning your own event promotional plan. Good luck!