OB-sessed!

Leaning Into Influencer Mode to Elevate Your Special Events!

By Emily Linares

Welcome to the world of event planning, where creativity knows no bounds and trends evolve faster than you can say “hashtag worthy.” In a time where experiences matter as much as aesthetics, event planners have an opportunity to bring the most unique and niche visions to life. One surefire way to captivate audiences and leave lasting impressions is by incorporating cohesive branding and trends into your events. Don’t worry! This doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel or scrapping the ideas you have developed over years of hosting. In this article, you can expect to learn ways to take your events to the next level and showcase all the content-worthy details!

At this point, some of you may be apprehensive about changing things about your events when it seems the trends will fly by us faster than we can accommodate them. However, in order to keep a fresh audience and offer components of the event that cater to all ages, it’s time to lean into the new and now. Use these six tips to transform your event norm!

1. Set the Stage: The Power of Branding

Picture this: your event is a blank canvas, and branding is your vibrant palette of colors. Remember the days of cut-and-paste vision boards with magazine clippings and too much glitter glue? Your event should have a vision, and creating a mood board featuring images, colors, and themes you want to include can help ensure you’re creating an experience like no other. Like a brand, your event should have a consistent theme, color scheme, and visual identity reflecting its purpose and values. Unleash your inner brand strategist and create an event persona as captivating as a trending hashtag. Pinterest is one of the best resources out there to create a virtual board. Just search for words and ideas that feel like the right vibe for your event, and watch the vision come to life. I consider this process step one of any event and scour the internet for various resources for each aspect of my event. Imagery is such a powerful source of inspiration and often how influencers are successful in creating their personal brand. An event brand is just as important so you can ensure that when people think of your special day, the essential details come to mind.

Pro Tip: Choose colors that resonate with your event’s mood and message. Remember, just like influencers curate their feeds, you’re curating an experience.

2. Creating FOMO Before It Even Happens

In the world of influencers, hashtags are the magic spells that summon likes, shares, and comments. Apply this enchanting strategy to your event by crafting a unique and catchy event hashtag. Encourage attendees to use it and watch the social media magic unfold! While effective, it’s important to note that hashtags aren’t the only way to draw buzz about your event, even before it happens! User-generated content is your biggest help in this space. Even though you may not be the exact person doing the marketing for your event, as the host, you know what attractions score big every year, and it’s on you to help share the love! People are used to sharing their lives in real-time by tagging the location of your event or tagging your handle on social media. As you wrap up your event each year, take a social media deep dive on the things that “went viral” and save that content for next year’s event. As you build up excitement through ticket sales or date announcements, use those nuggets to bring attention to some showstoppers for your event and watch the attention roll in. The “Influencer” effect helps people who shared content feel recognized, and the Easter Eggs you are dropping in advance of your event make you seem trendy and build a new level of anticipation for your experience!

Pro Tip: Infuse a playful twist into your hashtag, something that’s both memorable and on-brand. It’s all about being trendy and pun-tastic!

3. A Picture-Perfect Setting: Instagrammable Spaces

If a tree falls in a forest and no one posts about it on Instagram, did it happen? The answer is a resounding “no!” Design your event spaces with content creation in mind. Think photogenic backdrops, charming installations, and delightful nooks that attendees can’t resist snapping. Content Creation has evolved so that the way to take things to the next level is to go beyond the selfie installation for a complete experience worth sharing. Vlogs and live story sharing are the future of social sharing, and one selfie station won’t make the cut. By ensuring your branding is cohesive across the event and creating spaces that are welcoming and meant to be shared, you set yourself up for user-generated content to come from your event. You may have heard of the art installation known as Museum of Ice Cream, a fully interactive indoor play space dubbed as a “safe space for human connection and learning through play.” While a fully functional museum, the iconic rooms with slides and pools of sprinkles are enough to make anyone’s Instagram feed brighten up. The attention to detail in the space gives a 360-degree experience and ensures that no matter what is shared from the event, it is cohesive with the brand and the mission. There’s no need to create an entire installation for each event, but knowing that those details will be captured and shared, whether intentional or not, urges us as creators to curate events where we celebrate every photo and memory captured.

Pro Tip: Create a standout photo op that’s impossible to resist. Giant floral frames, quirky neon signs, or even a wall of mesmerizing balloons—it’s all about creating the perfect selfie moment.

4. All About Me: Using Personalization to Your Advantage

In brand marketing, swag bags are like golden tickets to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. For your event, craft goodie bags that are a delightful blend of trendy and practical. Imagine if an influencer’s “haul” video came to life! A great example of this we have seen recently in the event space is influencer brand trips. Companies are sponsoring paid vacations in tropical places to encourage content creators to use their products and share all the tips and tricks. Along with these magical destinations is an all-inclusive experience designed to fit the individual influencer’s aesthetic. This includes clothing in their styles and sizes to wear on the trip or personalized merchandise and apparel to showcase as part of their content. Beauty brand Tarte is infamous for hosting these elaborate brand trips, and watching the vlogs of arrival is like kids on Christmas morning. Rooms are filled with PR items, personal swag, and then photos and videos galore are taken all weekend. Many of these details work best for events on a smaller scale, but there are ways to take the intention behind this personalization and apply it to your festivals. VIP and Sponsor swag is where I truly feel this personalization shines. Taking time to make your sponsors feel special is one of the best ways to retain those relationships year after year! Handwritten thank-you notes are one of the oldest ways to show appreciation and can go a long way! If you are a government or location-based event, a great way to make swag feel intentional at your event is to source with local groups. It may be a seasoning from your local BBQ shop, or organic soap bars from the farmer’s market, but those little details will have your attendees feel like you thought of every detail for their experience and will continue to visit you year after year.

Pro Tip: Collaborate with local artisans and brands to curate swag that resonates with your event’s theme. Bonus points for eco-friendly and reusable items!

5. Trendy Treats: Culinary Adventures for the Gram

Influencers are all about food that’s not just delicious but also a feast for the eyes. Elevate your event’s culinary offerings to influencer standards. Think vibrant and Instagram-worthy dishes that attendees can’t wait to share with their followers. The wedding industry has really taken on this sector of event planning, and we’ve seen it bleed into traditional events. A “signature drink” craze has taken over, and couples often showcase a “his and hers” drink, or even in recent years, a drink inspired by a pet! This nod to the event hosts is intimate and personalized and makes attendees feel included as part of their story. We’ve seen this carry over to events through drinks at concert venues based on the artist, such as a “Lavender Haze Punch” inspired by Taylor Swift at her Eras Tour. Often, these food and drink details are costs we would have incurred anyway, but tying them back to the brand keeps reminding people how cohesive your experience is. If the food itself remains simple, create an interactive station for it! Unique ideas have come out for food presentation in the last few years such as champagne serving walls, at home hibachi style dinners, and custom cotton candy shape cones!

Pro Tip: Incorporate food stations where attendees can customize their dishes. Interactive and aesthetically pleasing—what more could an influencer ask for?

6. Entertain with a Twist: Performance as an Artform

Like influencers engage their followers with captivating content, your event’s entertainment should be an art form. Whether it’s a live band, a mesmerizing dance troupe, or an unexpected flash mob, let your entertainment be the talk of the town. People love to be included in the action, so interactive entertainment will always be a big hit! In large-scale event planning, it’s important to think about each attendee’s perspective of the entertainment, as they are the ones who will be the judge of whether it was a successful event. Knowing your audience and the demographic of event attendees is essential to ensuring that the activities you provide serve them. Influencers are great at this aspect of hoping because they can use their marketing brain to tap into who they’re talking to when it’s time to plan something fun!

Pro Tip: Surprise your attendees with an unexpected performance. It’s all about creating moments that are as shareable as a viral meme.

Above all, it’s important to keep in mind that while TikTok stars may be the talk of the town right now, they’re not reinventing the wheel; maybe they’re just putting a new coat of paint on the car! You know your events inside and out, and these tips can allow you to take a step back and evaluate what steps you can take to improve your practices for future years. Remember, just as influencers charm their audiences, you have the power to mesmerize yours. So let your creativity reign supreme, turning every event into a viral sensation that will have attendees and their followers talking for days!

Emily Linares is the Special Projects and Events Manager for the McKinney Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) in McKinney, TX. The MEDC holds many events annually, including quarterly tech networking events, annual golf tournaments, community forums, and grand openings. She previously served as Marketing and Events Manager for the City of Corinth, where she hosted various festivals and banquets. Emily holds her bachelor’s in hospitality management from the University of North Texas and her Master’s in Strategic Communication from Texas Tech University. She is currently working towards her CFEE and can be reached at elinares@mckinneyedc.com

Sources: Museum of Ice Cream: www.museumoficecream.com/austin/

Time Magazine: time.com/6279894/tarte-brand-trips-influencer-marketing/