THE ADVANCED GUIDE TO USING
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR EVENTS
LEARN HOW TO MASTER SOCIAL MEDIA WITH INSIGHT AND ADVICE FROM MARKETING EXPERTS
PREFACE Many event planners who try social media end up disappointed and discouraged. Here are the biggest reasons your past social media efforts haven't delivered the results you had hoped:
1
You're following advice and information that isn't true.
2
You don't understand social media's uses and benefits.
3
You haven't set clear goals for your social media.
4
You're not on the right platforms.
5
You don't check your social media efforts effectiveness.
6
You don't tweak your strategy for success.
If you find yourself saying things like "We had high hopes, but got poor results", "Our entire budget went to waste", or "We're never doing this again!" you're suffering from the results of one of the 6 mistakes to the side. Just one of those 6 mistakes is enough to make all of your social media efforts unsuccessful, but don't worry, we've collected advice, information and methods from social media marketing specialists. Read through this book and you'll be a master of social media in no time. After putting the advice and methods from this book into practice, you'll begin experiencing more ticket sales, an increase in attendee satisfaction, lower customer service costs and more.
Chapter 1
I Already Tried Social Media...
(Common Misconceptions, Myths and Mistakes)
CHAPTER 1: I ALREADY TRIED SOCIAL MEDIA... Lately, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of event professionals using and expressing interest in using social media for their events. Many blogs, industry websites and event professionals are claiming that your event must be on social media to be successful, but blindly rushing onto social media is a sure fire way to end up disappointed or worse, permanently damaging the reputation for your event. Much of the world's population is on social media in one way or another, but that doesn't mean your audience is willing to use their social media for the event. The truth about social media and events is that every audience is different. This means they will interact with your event differently, and on different platforms. It also means they may not be willing to use social media during your event at all. That is why it's tricky giving and listening to advice from other event planners. Their Audience is totally different from yours!
Most often, event professionals fall prey to these common misconceptions about social media and events: You believe you should use social media because a competitor is. (You should perform a true competitor analysis first.) You hear from a fellow event planner, or a trusted website that [social media platform] caused [some crazy awesome benefit for their event]. (Every event and audience is different!) You think social media will turn an unsuccessful event into a successful one. (Social media can add to an events success, but it doesn't magically fix bad events.) You have high hopes for social media, but don't have the necessary time and effort into it to see any real results. (It only takes 20 minutes a day!) You feel like social media is too risky and would take too much money. (Social media requires very little budget, resources and time to run properly.)
Chapter 2
Social Media Does What?! (Social Media's Uses and Benefits)
CHAPTER 2: SOCIAL MEDIA DOES WHAT?! Social media has powerful benefits and uses for events. It's important to know what these are before you get started. There are 9 big benefits you get from using social media for your event: It creates additional layers of content. It extends the event's reach to those outside of the event. It increases the event's attendance rate. It increases attendee engagement. It gives you the ability to see attendee reactions in real time. It increases the event's impact overall. It creates buzz. It increases event ticket sales. Social media is most commonly used in the following 7 ways: Customer Service PR/Online Reputation Management Marketing Sales Event Engagement Event Feedback Research
You can (and should) experience all 9 benefits when you've completed this book and the steps within it. These benefits apply to all events, but they shouldn't be what you focus on right now. Instead, these should just be things to keep in mind. What you need to focus on at this stage is social media's uses and which uses are most important to your event. Take a moment to rank the 7 uses in order of importance. In theory, you could utilize social media for all 7 uses, but that involves a significant amount of time and resources. We advise that you choose the top 3 or 4 important uses and focus on them. These 3 or 4 uses are going to decide (in part) which social media platforms you'll be uses and what you will use to measure your social media's success.
Chapter 3
Got Any Plans Tonight? (Creating a Successful Social Media Plan)
CHAPTER 3: GOT ANY PLANS TONIGHT? Ideally, your social media efforts will take no longer than 20 minutes a day. Here's an example of a 20 minute social media plan:
5 Minutes: Schedule posts.
10 Minutes: Respond to mentions, messages, etc.
5 Minutes: Analyze your efforts and do research.
This 20 minute plan will hold true for the time leading up to the event and after the event, but in the days immediately before the event and the days during the event you will need to tweak the plan. This is especially true if you are using social media to increase event engagement! Let's dive into each category and see exactly what you need to do.
SCHEDULING POST Post on each platform. On Twitter, try to incorporate trending hashtags. Do not spam posts (if you can do that in 5 minutes, kudos to you). Your goal is 1-2 a day per platform. RESPONDING TO MENTIONS, MESSAGES, ETC. This can be divided into two steps: Monitoring, and Responding. Do not spend more than 3 minutes monitoring. The goal is to respond to as many mentions, message and other posts as you can. If nobody is directly mentioning you, respond to relevant topics and hashtags. The goal is to give more than you take. ANALYZE AND RESEARCH You should spend time every day looking over your audience engagement and your social media platform's analytics. We discuss how to do this in a later chapter, but it's important you set aside the time for it in your social media plan.
Chapter 4
#?
(Everything You Need to Know About Hashtags)
CHAPTER 4: #? Nothing is more universally accepted on social media then the hashtag. Right now, you can (and should) use a hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google+, Pinterest and more. As event planners, you have a unique edge because hashtags work much better with events than a product, a service or a business name. There are 8 benefits to using hashtags at your event: Consistency Awareness Analysis Engagement Feedback Distribution Community Networking Now, in order to obtain those benefits you must create the perfect hashtag. Don't worry though! Creating a great hashtag is incredibly simple and only involves 4 steps.
HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT HASHTAG STEP 1 Create an original hashtag. Research all social media platforms and ensure that nobody is using the hashtag you've chosen. STEP 2 Pick a short hashtag. The optimal length is 6 characters, but it's not the end of the world if your hashtag is longer. STEP 3 Make sure the hashtag is understandable. Acronyms are acceptable as long as it's easily understood. STEP 4 Add the year to make the hashtag scalable. EXAMPLES: Event: Miami Benefit Concert Hashtag: #MIABNFT15 Event: Digital Technology Trade Show Hashtag: #DGTL16
Chapter 5
Oh, the Places You'll Post
(Which Social Media Platforms to Use and How)
FACEBOOK AT A GLANCE Facebook is the most popular social media platform, and allows you to share images, videos, and text.
EVENTS IT'S GOOD FOR Meetings Product Launches Conferences Trade Shows Exhibitions
Networking Events Concerts Personal Events Festivals
PLATFORM'S USES Customer Service PR/Online Reputation Management Event Engagement
Marketing Research Sales Event Feedback
HOW TO USE THE PLATFORM Post outside of business hours and only twice a day. Include a link, an image or video, and one or two hashtags. Keep posts short and informal, and do not spam other pages.
TWITTER AT A GLANCE Because of it's real time nature, Twitter is the go to for many event planners. Trends and hashtags are king on this platform.
EVENTS IT'S GOOD FOR Seminars Product Launches Conferences Trade Shows Exhibitions
Award Ceremonies Conventions Sports Events Festivals
PLATFORM'S USES Customer Service PR/Online Reputation Management Event Engagement
Marketing Research Sales Event Feedback
HOW TO USE THE PLATFORM Avoid tweeting with @username for maximum reach, tweet several times a day and always use your event hashtag with one other for maximum impact. Don't ask for retweets/follows.
YOUTUBE AT A GLANCE Youtube is the most popular platform for video. It can increase website traffic and if used properly, event signups.
EVENTS IT'S GOOD FOR Seminars Product Launches Conferences Trade Shows Exhibitions
Award Ceremonies Conventions Personal Events Festivals
PLATFORM'S USES Marketing Event Feedback
Sales
HOW TO USE THE PLATFORM Use Youtube to upload your ads, recordings of speakers, presentations, sessions, and any other video content you may have. Keep promotional videos under 3 mins, and other videos under 18 mins. Utilize good SEO practices and optimize your upload for target keywords. Use a powerful CTA.
GOOGLE+ AT A GLANCE Google+ is worth using for SEO purposes and Hangouts, but don't expect much engagement due to the small amount of users on the social media component.
EVENTS IT'S GOOD FOR Seminars Product Launches Conferences Trade Shows
Conferences Conventions Networking Events Exhibitions
PLATFORM'S USES Marketing Sales
Event Engagement
HOW TO USE THE PLATFORM Having the page created for the event and keeping the description and event information updated is highly beneficial for SEO purposes. Hangouts on Air is also a great, free tool for broadcasting parts or all of your event live.
LINKEDIN AT A GLANCE Linkedin is a social media platform developed for professionals and business making it well suited for professional events.
EVENTS IT'S GOOD FOR Seminars Product Launches Conferences Trade Shows
Award Ceremonies Exhibitions Networking Events Meetings
PLATFORM'S USES Research Sales
Marketing Event Feedback
HOW TO USE THE PLATFORM Start by creating a group or company profile for your event, then, begin to share industry related content, not promotional content. Linkedin users do not want to be converted or sold to. They want intelligent discussion. Make sure to keep a formal tone and to make your posts brief. Make use of Linkedin's Slideshare to share content from your event.
INSTAGRAM AT A GLANCE Instagram is one of the most popular apps among millennials and photos and videos can be created by everyone at the event.
EVENTS IT'S GOOD FOR Concerts Product Launches Conferences Exhibitions
Award Ceremonies Festivals Trade Shows
PLATFORM'S USES Event Engagement Marketing Research
Event Feedback Sales
HOW TO USE THE PLATFORM Post content leading up to the event and after the event using 5 hashtags, and share unique and engaging images and videos such as behind the scenes content. During the event you should encourage attendees to share their own images and videos using your event's hashtag.
PINTEREST AT A GLANCE Pinterest is a social bookmarking website and app that can be used for research and may increase web traffic, but you shouldn't spend a lot of time and resources on Pinterest as the other social media platforms will deliver more results.
EVENTS IT'S GOOD FOR Product Launches Festivals
Trade Shows Award Ceremonies
PLATFORM'S USES Research Sales
Marketing
HOW TO USE THE PLATFORM Pinterest won't deliver the same results as some of the other social media platforms, but if you do use it, make sure to include high quality images and pin more than just your own content. As a research tool, Pinterest is very effective. You can quickly gather ideas for catering, decorations and more.
Chapter 6
Advanced Social Media Strategy
(Best Tools to Use, Boosted Posts and Your Budget)
CHAPTER 6: ADVANCED SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY So, You've overcome the common social media myths, you understand how it'll benefit you, you've got your hashtag, you've created you plan and you even know how to use each individual platform. That doesn't make you a master of social media yet! First, you'll want to get Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a social media management tool and it'll save you time, keep your message consistent and allow you to quickly stay engaged with your audience.
To start, make a low cost ($10) advertisement on each platform. Choose CPM instead of CPC, because even though it'll cost more, you'll get much higher quality traffic. Facebook is the safest choice for boosting posts and social media advertising. Make sure you take the time to set up your target audience properly - it will help you tremendously.
Hootsuite should only cost you $10 a month.
Linkedin is more expensive, so I'd recommend you stay away unless you've seen strong results from the test ad. Some [events] do well on the platform and others don't.
Now, you'll want to boost some posts and create some ads on social media as well, and this is where things get tricky.
Don't mess with twitter ads much because I never see good results coming from the platform.
You've got a few choices here, but Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Linkedin Ads, and Instagram Ads are the main choices.
Instagram is a great platform if your audience is on it, but if you aren't targeting millennials then it won't show strong results.
Jia-Ying Lin, a social media marketing specialist gives the following advice for using boosted posts and social media advertisements:
As for your budget: Start with $50 a month, and if you see good results feel free to increase that number. We recommend you stay under $200.
Chapter 7
Someone Liked My Post! Now What? (Tracking ROI and Audience Engagement)
CHAPTER 7: SOMEONE LIKED MY POST! NOW WHAT? There are two ways to tell if your social media is succeeding. First is to check audience engagement. This method is fairly straightforward and quick.
Engaging (Level 3): Your audience is interacting, but only in a limited way. They are liking posts, but that's all.
Basically, it involves seeing which level of social media engagement you are at. There are 5 levels of social media engagement:
Endorsing (Level 4): Your audience is now sharing your content with others.
Observing Following Engaging Endorsing
Contributing
Observing (Level 1): Your audience is watching your posts and deciding whether it is interesting enough to join. Following (Level 2): Your audience is now following your event or liking it's pages.
Contributing (Level 5): Your audience is now actively participating.They are commenting, posting on your wall and tweeting using your hashtag. Obviously, you want your audience to be contributing, and the easiest way to do this is to analyze, tweak and repeat. Start by measuring the engagement each post receives, then take the most popular posts and figure out why they received the extra engagement, then tweak your strategy to incorporate the elements that made that post successful and repeat the process! The second way to track success is to track ticket sales, attendee engagement and other tangible statistics. These should increase with good social media.