Over the past 15 years, the landscape of event promotion has undergone significant transformations. With the rise of social media and the dominance of smartphones in our lives, event promoters have had to adapt to a whole new set of rules. Even traditional platforms like email have evolved drastically in the past decade. Keep reading to discover the latest platforms for promoting your events online and learn how to enhance traditional marketing techniques with innovative tools.
When choosing a venue for your upcoming event, it's important to take into account their dedication to supporting the promotion of your event. This includes onsite marketing and online marketing, particularly social media and if they send any mailers. Ask yourself these key questions when deciding on the perfect venue for your event. The more connected the venue is on social media, the better they can assist you in promoting your event through their channels.
Expert tip: Make sure your event makes a lasting impact by hiring a photographer and or videographer or utilizing the venue's photographer. This content is golden for post-promotion and for promoting future events.
In today's dynamic event marketing landscape, embracing the power of social media is an absolute must. Building a consistent online audience can be challenging, but with the right strategies across platforms like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you can kickstart the process and ensure your events get the attention they deserve. Here are some specific tips per platform:
Promoting events on Instagram:
Twitter Tips:
Tweet Regularly: Keep your Twitter feed active by posting regular updates about your event. Use relevant event hashtags and mention key participants or speakers to increase engagement.
Engage with Followers: Respond to comments, retweets, and direct messages promptly. Engaging with your audience on Twitter builds a sense of community and encourages event promotion.
Twitter Chats: Consider hosting or participating in Twitter chats related to your event's theme. This can help you connect with potential attendees and experts in your field.
TikTok Tips:
Creative Short Videos: TikTok thrives on short, creative videos. Craft fun and engaging content related to your event. Incorporate catchy music and trending challenges to capture the platform's spirit.
Leverage User-Generated Content: Encourage event attendees to create and share TikToks about your event. User-generated content can go viral and generate excitement.
Collaborate with TikTok Influencers: Partner with TikTok influencers who align with your event's theme. They can create content and promotions that resonate with their followers.
Hashtag Challenges: Initiate a unique event-related hashtag challenge on TikTok. Encourage users to participate and challenge their friends to join in on the fun.
Facebook Tips:
Engaging Posts: Craft engaging and informative posts about your event on Facebook. Use a variety of content formats, such as text, images, videos, and live streams, to keep your audience intrigued.
Facebook Events: Create and promote your event using Facebook Events. This feature allows attendees to RSVP, receive updates, and share the event with their network.
Paid Promotion: Consider investing in Facebook ads to target specific demographics and reach a broader audience. Use Facebook's ad targeting options to maximize your campaign's effectiveness.
LinkedIn Tips:
Professional Event Page: Create a professional event page on LinkedIn with detailed information about your event, including speakers, agenda, and highlights. Use high-quality images and compelling descriptions.
LinkedIn Articles: Publish informative articles related to your event's industry or topic. Share these articles on your event page to establish authority and attract professionals interested in your event.
Network and Engage: Connect with relevant professionals and groups on LinkedIn. Share event updates and discussions within these networks to reach potential attendees who align with your event's objectives.
By incorporating these up-to-date strategies across Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you'll have a comprehensive approach to promoting your events on various social channels. This will help you connect with your audience in meaningful ways, increase visibility, and ensure the success of your events.
Customise your Facebook page
Your Facebook page is a great place to let people know about your events and see what people think of them. To customise your page you’ll need to use Static FBML. Static FBML is a Facebook application that allows you to add basic HTML to your Facebook page, making it look that bit more professional. With Static FBML you can create an attractive landing page, insert a from to collect email addresses for a newsletter connected to a competition and have a link back to your main website to generate some traffic. – Follow Evvnt on Facebook
To find out more about Static FBML and making your Facebook page ‘pop’ see our guide: How to Create a Facebook Landing Page. Facebook most recent update to Pages also make it possible to add IFrames to landing pages on Facebook. This lets you import and control any style of web page on Facebook.
Consider a live TwitterFeed at your event
If you (or the club) have a projector as well as an internet connection at your event, you can display your followers tweets, live at the event. Think of the number of followers you’ll gain as a result and this will provide a meaningful link between your social media activity before the event and with the night itself. You’ll need some software like Twitterfall (best for larger events as you can effectively censor tweets) or StreamTwitter (if you want to maximise the tweets). Follow us on Twitter
3. Make your email work for you
A mailing list is essential so people can keep track of your events and the venues where you are hosting them. A popular mailing list will make you more attractive to a prospective venue as they will see all the clients you are bringing with you. Email is a targeted approach to stay in touch with your clients and as an event promoter you have a wealth of material for a newsletter; pictures from previous events, interviews with acts and guests or your current favourite bit of content.
Our fully automated email solution is tailored for local and category-specific opt-in consumers. This service targets recipients based on their interests and location, reaching 1000 to 500k consumers per event. Detailed tracking mechanisms provide insights through open-and-click reporting, while the email format is optimized for mobile and desktop viewing. The mailing list undergoes a rigorous audit every 12 months. Pricing starts at $100 for local events and $120 for enterprise events, empowering you to effortlessly promote your event to your desired audience.
4. Go mobile
With mobile marketing comes the opportunity for events with a secret destination and mobile tickets. In the past promoters have used these techniques like these to make sure the club plays ball with a promoter’s requirements; if people only find out on the day where a party is happening, you can move it nearer to the event without too much trouble. These techniques will help you to play on an exclusive reputation for your events.
Mobile campaigns deliver the latest news and content from an event and create a feeling of exclusiveness. It is also a useful route to sponsorship as it offers a mobile vehicle for the placement of event branding and advertisement . You can either opt for a standard SMS or for a richer, more elaborate MMS. Evently makes it easy to design both of these and integrate mobile marketing into your existing campaign.
Top 3 mobile marketing tips for events
i) Timing
It is generally advised for your mobile campaign to go live a week before the event. Include a teaser, an interview of the featured artist or a competition with prizes.
ii) A ticket countdown
Once your campaign is launched, you can gradually apply pressure as the event becomes imminent. For instance, include a countdown of the number of tickets available.
iii) Evaluate
Take the time to do a debriefing of how effective the mobile campaign was. Whilst analysing your ‘opt-in’ rate, be wary of the barriers such as perceived costs, lack of awareness or relevance, that could prevent customers to opting-in. Be sure to use these analytics in order to improve your next mobile campaign.
5. Use event listings to promote events
Event listings websites form an important part of any event marketing strategy. Free listing services such as Yelp, Qype, Upcoming, Spoonfed, Eventful, LastFM and dozens more offer event promoters access to an enormous local and global audience of over 78 million event-goers per month. With that kind of reach, it’s very important that promoters take advantage of this free promotion method.
The pros are obvious – for free, promoters can access many new channels for marketing event information, ticket links and artist lineups. This can drive awareness, attendance and, critically, ticket sales. By piggy-backing on the popularity of some of the world’s top event sites, event organisers can overcome relative obscurity especially with brand new events. There are, however, some downsides. Adding listings to these sites is time consuming, taking up hours or even days depending on the number of events and how many sites are used. Additionally, sometimes editorial restrictions on the individual listing sites make it difficult to categorise events properly and premium content can steal away reader attention.
Event listings with images are more likely to get attention than ones without. Readers tend to briefly scan websites, so using an interesting picture for your event will increase the chance of a user clicking on your event.
8. Broadcast your live event online
With the advent of websites like UStream.tv and Audioboo making it easier than ever before to stream events online instantly, your event can reach an international audience. This live engagement means make it easy to spread your events online and get fans involved even if they didn’t buy a ticket this time. Twitter has an extremely short timescale, and is best used just before or even on the day of a live music event. Remember to keep a saved search in Twitter for relevant tweets and these will later serve as testimonials for your past events.
Video or audio streaming services are becoming an increasingly popular way for people to share live events around the globe. Live streaming allows hundreds or even thousands of people to be part of the live experience and access events on their computer or mobile phone.