Promoting Events Via Social Media

As the number of people using social networks increases, so does the number of grassroots campaigns that leverage social media for event promotion. Since many tools and applications from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are free, cost savings—compared to traditional event promotion methods—is a primary benefit. However, building relationships via social networks requires a considerable time commitment. But, the payoff—credibility via friend referrals—can be priceless.

These new methods of recruiting event attendees still must abide by traditional rules to achieve success:

Target your audience appropriately
Include relevant information
Promote within a reasonable time period (two to four weeks in advance for established groups; at least two months for relationships that need to be established)
Execute the event well

If budget permits, couple a social media campaign with traditional event promotion tactics, such as direct and guerrilla marketing, media relations and/or advertising, to generate the maximum return on your investment.

At the event, consider surveying attendees to record the most popular mechanisms that generated awareness and interest in attending.

Facebook

On Facebook, create a fan page (similar to individual profile pages) to share information with people with similar interests via a news feed. From the fan page, create an event and post regular information such as updates, links, photos etc., to drive attendance.

As the date nears, Facebook will remind those who have RSVPed about the event. Event organizers who have Facebook profiles can post links to the event on their pages with the hope of recruiting friends and generating word-of-mouth publicity.

Be forewarned that if you try to recruit fans and send event invitations to Facebook users outside of your network, you will most likely be flagged for spam. Here are some Facebook event etiquette tips.

After the event, post photos and videos to the event and fan pages and tag attendees.

Twitter

On Twitter, create an account specific to an event and post updates about progress in planning the event and solicit feedback from followers, etc. Twitter is searchable by geographic region and interests via Twitter search. Increase visibility for your event outside of your network by following tweeps who might be interested in attending. If they are a good fit, odds are they will follow you back and consider attending your event.

If you use a Twitter aggregator, like TweetDeck, you can easily keep tabs on who is tweeting about similar topics so you can engage them in dialog and keep tabs on who is replying to your Twitter account throughout the day.

During the event, create a hashtag for your event and encourage your followers to use it when discussing anything related to the event. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag. For example:

Need a ride to twestival Cleveland from the West side. #twestival.

Blogs

Leverage the event organizer’s Web site to integrate all social media promotion activities. For example, add a Twitter badge that showcases recent tweets from the event account to the homepage. And, post links to the Facebook fan and event pages to encourage visitors to join.

Target relevant bloggers with information about your event and post comments with links, as appropriate, to create a ripple effect of awareness among their followers.

Utilize LinkedIn to promote business or professional development events by creating an event page or posing a question.

Ning

When established social networking sites exclude a niche your event is targeting, Ning offers the option of creating your own social network site, complete with blog entries, discussion forums and event listings.

Ning offers easy integration with other social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and blogs for posting related messaging, photos and videos related to your event. Further, it’s fairly easy to add multiple events.

YouTube and Flickr

Particularly for recurring events, a YouTube channel and a Flickr group page provide visual avenues to keep interested parties involved in event preparation. At the completion of each event, organizers can post videos and photos of event attendees to give a sense of turn-out and build excitement for the next event in a series.

Christina Klenotic is a senior account executive at Dix & Eaton with a specialty in media relations, guerrilla/viral marketing and marketing communications. She is available on Twitter both personally (@cklenotic) and professionally (@d_and_e).

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Tags: Blogs, Events, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, Promotion, Twitter