6 Tips to use Social Media to Promote an Event

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Tips to use Social Media to Promote an Event

There are many curmudgeons and luddites out there whose opinions on social media range from bitter to hostile. The reason, primarily, is that they believe social media—the Internet in general—separates people from reality. However, savvy brands using social media know that the opposite is true. Social media can actually be an extremely powerful tool in bringing people together in real-life situations.

Take events as an example. If you’re using social media to promote an affiliate business, to offer seminars, or any other type of enterprise where you’ll benefit from a live event, then sites like Twitter and Facebook can be harnessed to take your events to the next level in popularity. Here are a few tips to help you achieve that.

Use Social Media to Promote an Event:

Event-Promotion Made Easy with These 6 Social Media Tips:

1: Use the Power of Video:

The big social sites out there may have overtaken YouTube in terms of traffic and membership, but you’ll notice that Facebook now has its own videos, and sites like Twitter create spin off video-specific sites. Video is extremely powerful, and you can use this power to promote your event.

Reading about an event does tell a potential attendee quite a bit, but showing them the event is a much greater selling point. With video, you’re able to spread things like enthusiasm, honesty, necessity, and other aspects and emotions that may create more interest. With text, getting that same level of emotion and engagement across is something even Hemingway struggled with.
With a video, you can:

Add entertaining music
Create cool visual effects
Add a comical or light hearted script
Actually get actors to help you sell
Garner more interest than text or photos
Offer a live look at previous events

2: Add Incentive for Sharing:

Whether it’s a status update, a tweet, a YouTube video, or a short Keek spot, you want as many people to see your promotional materials as possible. This is where incentives can really pay off. What if you offered free admission or a free gift to an attendee who brought a couple of people? What if you offered a coupon or prize to every person who shared your post with X number of people?

The idea here is to take an affiliate marketing spin on event promotion through social media. You can actually set up a legitimate affiliate brand and create banners, hand out affiliate codes, etc., to ensure things run smoothly. No matter how you slice it, though, you should think about adding incentive.

Incentivizing sharing offers a few benefits:

People will compete to spread your message
More people finding out about your brand and event find out about the sharing; i.e. the sharing exponentially spreads
You can dominant News Feeds and trending tags

3: Add Incentive for Attending:

Of course, there is always the possibility that the people who share your message won’t actually attend the event. This is going to happen regardless; what you want is a higher percentage of attendees vs. viewers and sharers than would otherwise manifest. You get this by extending the best benefits to the people who actually attend.

What exactly is a good incentive for people to attend a live event? For haughty events like the Oscars or P Diddy’s White Party, it’s typically a gift bag with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. You’re not operating in opulence, of course, so think about things that turn a business event into more of a party atmosphere that people want to attend.

Think about offering incentives like:

Free food and drink
A free app, eBook or other download
Gift cards for iTunes or other inexpensive yet popular locales
Cover charge discounts
Different games and contests during the event
Popular keynote speakers
Entertaining presentations
Different and exciting themes

4: Use the Power of Paid Advertising:

Reaching people to tell them about your social media event may require more than sweetening the sharing pot. And in terms of people wanting to show up for free gifts and a fun time, they still have to know about it. This is where the power of paid advertising comes in and offers an assist.

Although people may like to believe that a little bit of sharing can go a long way, it’s only a blip on the radar compared to the power of advertising on a site like Facebook. For Facebook specifically, try a few ad-based tips to promote your event.

Find a super ad-management app
Split test different varieties of ads
Personally control which ad(s) is/are released
Control your target markets and aim narrowly at those most likely to be interested
Try various ad types to see which gains the most traction

5: Find (Or Create) Relevant Hash tags:

Social media in general is much larger than Facebook, so let’s speak about a couple of other sites with this tip. Google+, Twitter and Facebook all use hash tags to catalogue content. A popular hash tag tacked onto a tweet puts it in with all other relevant tweets, and it becomes searchable by anyone wishing to see what else was said under that tag.

If you have a popular, established brand, you can create or use an existing hash tag of your own to help promote your event. If not, you can think about reaching out and borrowing someone else’s thunder for the purpose.

When using a hash tag, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Make sure the hash tag is directly related to your niche
Keep an eye on the tag to ensure its use remains consistent
Watch other taggers to measure your personal impact
Don’t use a tag that’s too popular or not popular enough; go Goldilocks
Use the tag in your paid advertising, and encourage it in your sharing
Strive for tag consistency on your end; i.e. use one tag to promote your event

6: Offer a Look Inside of the Event:

This tip is about informing people of the event in detail – giving people a look behind the proverbial curtain. To do this, you can use some of the methods mentioned above to get the word out there. Videos, tweets, sharing, hash tags, etc.; the idea is to get more people interested in attending.

You can show people an assortment of things about the event, such as:
Footage (video, photos) from previous events
Testimonials from past attendees or customers
Third-party press releases and other news spots
Information about the venue
An itinerary of the events, raffles, food, etc.
A preview of possible prizes
Previews of any videos that may run

Promoting an event using social media, when done properly, will not only pack your event but will also build more brand recognition and more of a following. These tips are easy and practical, and anyone with a basic video editor, a social media account and a little bit of time to use ad-management software can benefit greatly from implementing them.