1. Word of mouse – It’s simple. Events become viral when people want to talk about them. So figure out what makes your event unique and what will get people talking about it. Once you’ve figured this out, the rest is gravy (well…kind of).
2. Find your target – Think about what you’re trying to achieve. Are you hoping the media will pick up the story? Do you want to engage potential attendees? Or, do you want to provide your existing attendees with unique ways to stay in touch with one another? The possibilities with social media are endless. Social media can be time consuming, so the keys to a good strategy are clearly understanding what you want to achieve and focusing your efforts on the sites that will garner you the highest rate of return.
3. Create your home – Why just create a website for your event when you can create a blog to provide constant updates and promote dialogue or a Facebook page to encourage guests to upload their own photos / videos, provide comments and share with their friends. After all, that’s the beauty of social media. By allowing people to participate in shaping your event, you in turn get people excited about your event…and entice them to keep coming back to your home to add content.
4. Cast your net – There are many tools available to event professionals to help you spread the word: blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, EventPeeps, Youtube, Flickr and the list goes on. Find out where your target influencers live and craft unique and engaging ways to communicate your event to as many people within your target as possible. Bloggers are always looking for great content to share with their readers. Use them to help spread a word about your event (just remember, to concentrate your message on ideas that will engage your target, not simply ‘selling your event’). Once you’ve created your home, share it with your ‘followers’ and encourage them to share it with theirs.
5. Keep feeding the fish – So, now you’ve got a whole bunch of people following your event. Now what? Find ways to keep them engaged. For example…Create contests. Provide valuable updates. Encourage guests to dialogue with one another. If you’re going to use sites like Youtube, Flickr or Twitter, tell people what keywords to use so that others (and you) can easily find their movies, images and tweets. Find ways to keep bringing this information back to your home (i.e. your website, your blog or your Facebook page) – this serves to keep your site interesting and helps your target find all the information they need in one source.
6. Identify your influencers – Much like using bloggers to help spread your message, you can use attendees to do the same. Remember, you may have 100 event followers, but your followers each have their own followers (and so on). Identify potential influencers and ask them to talk about your event. One of the best ways to do this is via Twitter. Have them tweet about your event leading up to the big day by providing them with snippets of ‘behind the scenes’ info. And, get them to tweet about the event while they’re there. This helps to spread the word about your event and also helps to create desire with those who can’t attend.
7. Keep it going – Once the event is done, your job is not. Social media is fantastic for garnering feedback from attendees. Track social media sites to find out what was said about the event. Collect the images and videos that your attendees took and compile everything you want to share on your website, blog or event page.
8. Evaluate – Unfortunately this part of the process is often overlooked. Don’t forget to evaluate what worked and what didn’t and use this learning for your next event.
Lara McCulloch-Carter
Author of the Special Event blog ready2spark
Director of Marketing – Regal Tent Productions
President – ISES Toronto
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Very good advice. Plus if you have a blog and use social media the way you suggested, you increase your chance to show up at the top in Google.
Regarding rule no.7, it is not an after thought. You need to collect statistics and look at the results as an on-going process. Take into account feedback comments and numbers.
Very good advice. Plus if you have a blog and use social media the way you suggested, you increase your chance to show up at the top in Google. Regarding rule no.7, it is not an after thought. You need to collect statistics and look at the results as an on-going process. Take into account feedback comments and numbers.
Thank you, Kim! Well said and great addition on the tracking and searchability comments.
Thank you, Kim! Well said and great addition on the tracking and searchability comments.
Another useful and fun element for those who are your faithful influencers is to arrange a tweetup or other face-to-face opportunity so they can add a personal depth to the social networking relationships they have been cultivating.
Don’t forget the value of adding a webcast/webconference element to your event. This way those who cannot attend but have been following and promoting can still participate and assist with promoting actual content.
GREAT information!
Another useful and fun element for those who are your faithful influencers is to arrange a tweetup or other face-to-face opportunity so they can add a personal depth to the social networking relationships they have been cultivating.Don’t forget the value of adding a webcast/webconference element to your event. This way those who cannot attend but have been following and promoting can still participate and assist with promoting actual content.GREAT information!
Hi Spark –
I think this is a great list. My only feedback is that I think you left out the SM applications during the event.
I believe that SM can play an important role in creating dialogue, engaging people, facilitating learning and improving the participant's emotional ROI during an event.
So, I would propose a Rule #8: Empower the People during the event.
Here are some places where events can incorporate SM tools to Empower the people during the event:
(1) Improve interaction and idea exchange between participants.
(2) Improve Q&A sessions – by increasing number of questions and letting the shy people ask questions.
(3) Extend the conversation to people outside the event.
(4) Improving Networking among participants.
(5) Improve the learning before, during and after the events.
Hope this helps!
– Sam
Hi Spark – I think this is a great list. My only feedback is that I think you left out the SM applications during the event. I believe that SM can play an important role in creating dialogue, engaging people, facilitating learning and improving the participant's emotional ROI during an event.So, I would propose a Rule #8: Empower the People during the event.Here are some places where events can incorporate SM tools to Empower the people during the event: (1) Improve interaction and idea exchange between participants. (2) Improve Q&A sessions – by increasing number of questions and letting the shy people ask questions. (3) Extend the conversation to people outside the event.(4) Improving Networking among participants.(5) Improve the learning before, during and after the events.Hope this helps!- Sam
Absolutely fantastic additions! Keep them coming.
Absolutely fantastic additions! Keep them coming.
Great ideas. I would encourage event/meeting planners to take some additional steps.
One of the first things to do is to Identify your social media event goals. Is it marketing, advertising, PR, communication, information sharing, education, networking, etc? This comes before “Word of Mouse” and will help engage others in viral communication.
Another thing is to create “Listening Posts” in a variety of social media applications so that your potential and registered attendees have different ways to communicate directly with the event organizers and each other. It not just about email as the primary communication tool. Then event organizers can encourage input, comments and feedback from people before, during and after the event from a variety of locations. This is especially valuable for onsite texts via Twitter or directly from attendees so planners can manage any challenges. It’s not just about having one web home anymore, but a variety of “web properties” as we call it here in our offices. People visit the internet more for social media applications then for email and they like to see your event in their favorite social media applications–whether Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning, etc.
I encourage meeting and event planners to embed technology and social media during the event, like Sam mentions above. You have some of this mentioned with identify your influencers. Yes, identify people to tweet about the presentations during the event. Also, identify people to take questions from virtual attendees during the presentations. Then you’ve extended your audience. When possible, encourage the speakers to take 30-60 mins after the presentation and do an online blogtalkradio.com interview or be involved in a tweetchat with virtual attendees to extend the learning experience. Take it a step further and pre-load the speakers’ presentations to SlideShare so virtual attendees can view if you don’t use live video streaming. I also suggest using image magnification of Tweet chats for presentations so presenters and attendees alike can tweet questions or comments.
One final thing that blends well with what you’ve already written is to Extend The Experience. Ask speakers to write guest blog posts before and after the event. This keeps the speakers’ main points in everyone’s mind. When possible, set up an electronic eCommunity where attendees, exhibitors, speakers can create profiles and view others’ profiles. This will allow attendees to network before the event starts and identify people they want to meet onsite. The conversations can continue after the event in the eCommunity too. Anything you can do to help attendees retain the learning and enhance the networking is critical to the experience.
Great ideas. I would encourage event/meeting planners to take some additional steps. One of the first things to do is to Identify your social media event goals. Is it marketing, advertising, PR, communication, information sharing, education, networking, etc? This comes before “Word of Mouse” and will help engage others in viral communication.Another thing is to create “Listening Posts” in a variety of social media applications so that your potential and registered attendees have different ways to communicate directly with the event organizers and each other. It not just about email as the primary communication tool. Then event organizers can encourage input, comments and feedback from people before, during and after the event from a variety of locations. This is especially valuable for onsite texts via Twitter or directly from attendees so planners can manage any challenges. It’s not just about having one web home anymore, but a variety of “web properties” as we call it here in our offices. People visit the internet more for social media applications then for email and they like to see your event in their favorite social media applications–whether Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning, etc.I encourage meeting and event planners to embed technology and social media during the event, like Sam mentions above. You have some of this mentioned with identify your influencers. Yes, identify people to tweet about the presentations during the event. Also, identify people to take questions from virtual attendees during the presentations. Then you’ve extended your audience. When possible, encourage the speakers to take 30-60 mins after the presentation and do an online blogtalkradio.com interview or be involved in a tweetchat with virtual attendees to extend the learning experience. Take it a step further and pre-load the speakers’ presentations to SlideShare so virtual attendees can view if you don’t use live video streaming. I also suggest using image magnification of Tweet chats for presentations so presenters and attendees alike can tweet questions or comments. One final thing that blends well with what you’ve already written is to Extend The Experience. Ask speakers to write guest blog posts before and after the event. This keeps the speakers’ main points in everyone’s mind. When possible, set up an electronic eCommunity where attendees, exhibitors, speakers can create profiles and view others’ profiles. This will allow attendees to network before the event starts and identify people they want to meet onsite. The conversations can continue after the event in the eCommunity too. Anything you can do to help attendees retain the learning and enhance the networking is critical to the experience.
Lots of good thoughts in both this post and the comments. It is exciting (and about time) that the event industry see the light with social media. The large show management companies and contractors are starting to see the light…but it’s hard to turn the biggest ships.
One thought that has crept into my mind recently related to social media is that the real objective is to join our customers group of trusted friends. Just like the mechanic that we introduce to all of our friends by word of mouth we want to join our customers social networks.
Every person, every customer has a virtual “bar” that they go to where “everybody knows their name”. We know we’ve delivered meaning and gathered trust when we are invited to pull up a seat to that bar.
Cheers!
Lots of good thoughts in both this post and the comments. It is exciting (and about time) that the event industry see the light with social media. The large show management companies and contractors are starting to see the light…but it’s hard to turn the biggest ships.
One thought that has crept into my mind recently related to social media is that the real objective is to join our customers group of trusted friends. Just like the mechanic that we introduce to all of our friends by word of mouth we want to join our customers social networks.
Every person, every customer has a virtual “bar” that they go to where “everybody knows their name”. We know we’ve delivered meaning and gathered trust when we are invited to pull up a seat to that bar.
Cheers!