My theme is event marketing – How to boost attendance through social media. I chose this theme because it’s interesting, that social media has so huge role nowadays. I am also quite familiar with this topic, because in last spring I was involved with this event as a school project. I worked this project as a member in social media group. That was very new experience for me and it really showed how important role social media has these days.
Social media knows everything
Nowadays people use web and social media to collect information, communicate online and so on, so they have high knowledge about all before, during and after event. Social media involves all to the part of event. Attendees, event planner, staff, speakers. Everyone can publish data about an event, so it makes event planner to do their best job to be shown in a positive way. This is very important point, because everyone participating in your event can see the effort you put into marketing and overall everything in your event. Social media is so strong, that if you mess it up, it might be difficult to arrange any more events in the future.
Three important rules for event marketing
According to the text there are three important rules for event marketing. First you should engage in two-way conversation. You have to earn your audience´s attention and respect online communication. Then you should make your event attention-worthy. It´s not enough that you bring your event into social media. You also need to bring interesting and valuable content into it. Third important rule is to welcome honest feedback. As a event planner you should response to all comments, even the negative ones, unless its inappropriate. You should see the comment about a way of improve your event in the future.
Social Media strategy
When planning an event it´s very important to create a social media strategy. When I worked in social media group in event, I also noticed the importance of this. First you should identify your goals, what you want to accomplish with you event? Then define your target groups. Who are the people coming to your event and how to target marketing directly to them? Next step is to listen and monitor for existing conversations, what is said about your event or products in social media and on the web. After getting better understanding about your audience, you should determine which social tools and tactics you want to use. What are the social media channels that your audience uses, how to reach them. After that you should integrate your social media throughout the event registration process and set more accurate goals for event marketing. In my opinion these are very important point when you want to reach your goals about marketing your event.
Conclusion
In think that as an event planner it´s very important to know and maybe study more, how different channels work. It´s very important to know what the best qualities are and how to reach your audience in those channels. What are the tools you want to use and how to share, use hashtags, link and whatever you need to show up. The power of social media is so strong, that as an event planner you can reach people all over the world. Marketing is much easier and quicker than before. Everything in the web is public and it´s very easy for people to show and say everything online. All the data remains in internet, so it has effects in the future also. Social media has so many good effects on event marketing. There is so many possibilities to bring out your event. You just have to know how to do it.
References:
Event Marketing 2.0 – How to boost attendance through social media, an E-book by Cvent