Use these tips to promote your event on social media. With the right tactics, you can sell more tickets in advance online and attract extra people to your next event.
1. Showcase Prior Events with a Highlight Reel
Video promotion is a fast and creative way to capture the energy of your company and previous events. Create a video showing highlights of previous events to give potential customers a taste of what they could experience at your upcoming event. Catchy audio and bright visuals are key parts to driving registration and excitement.
You'll also get several engagement opportunities when you share it across the various social media channels to your family and friends. Consider hosting it on both Vimeo and YouTube, then uploading it to Facebook or other platforms is quick and easy.
2. Extend Your Event's Reach with Facebook's Events Page
Posting upcoming events to your website and then turning around and reposting them to Facebook may seem repetitive. But, it's a great way to give your audience a familiar and convenient place to find details about upcoming events. The Events feature also lets you connect and engage with your audience, answer questions, and see who's attending the event.
When they RSVP, they can share the event on their own newsfeeds. This allows you to extend your organic reach as well. Any potential event attendee will be able to quickly see all of your events in one convenient place.
3. Empower Your Event Attendees and Fans with Shareable Content
You want to make it as quick and easy as possible for your fans to share your upcoming event across multiple social media platforms. Give your registered attendees access to a webpage that has your branded downloadable resources. Give them a button like ClicktoTweet that allows them to share your page after they register and get on your event's landing page.
Make sure you have graphics, audio, video, and different platform updates ready to share and accessible. Also, remember that different platforms have different posting styles like square images for Instagram and rectangular images for Twitter. You want a few pieces of different promotional items for each platform you plan to promote on.
4. Buy LinkedIn Ads and Sponsored Updates to Promote Your Event
LinkedIn is a platform for business professionals that has ads that work like Facebook ads. Sponsored updates appear right at the top of people's news feeds. You want to avoid stock images for both of these promotional items and make sure that you create a catchy call to action that motivates people to click.
Ensure that your ads or sponsored updates target a specific audience and you want to split-test your promotional campaign. Design and run three different ads for each campaign and see which one does the best. HootSuite can measure and track how well promotional campaigns do on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
5. Use Past Event Attendee Photos for Updates
Half of the battle of promoting an event and selling tickets online is engaging your potential attendees while getting the word of your event out. If you have a similar event coming up, promote it by using past event attendee photos and create a status update. Make sure that you use fun and flattering pictures when you post.
Name and tag the attendees when you post these status updates if you can. Not only will this encourage them to comment and talk about their experiences, but it can also draw interest from the people on their friend lists. Invite your attendees to post their own photographs and share their experiences. This will generate buzz for your next event.
6. Give Teasers with Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are very popular within the Instagram community. A story is a series of connected clips that the user can upload as they go about their normal daily activities. For events, this is a quick, convenient, and fun way to give your followers a glimpse of what happens backstage. People love to see what happens behind the scenes before, during and after an event, and you can build interest in your next event this way.
Post small daily video clips showcasing teasers of upcoming events. Make sure to continue uploading these clips during the event so your followers who couldn't make it can see what they missed and to build interest for the next one. Each video is only live for 24 hours so production quality isn't a huge issue.
7. Utilize Your Guest Speakers and VIP Guests
Do you have a speaker or VIP guests coming to your event? If so, they're usually a very large draw for attendees. The speakers and VIP guests want your attendees to see them as much as the attendees want to watch their speeches. A little encouragement on your part can get this process off to a strong start.
If your guest speakers or VIPs have a sizeable following on Snapchat or Twitter, give them something to Tweet and Snap about. You can send them swag from your upcoming event and some relevant information that they can talk about to generate excitement before the event. Get a recap of their favorite event moments at the end so you can use it for your next event promotion.
8. Join and Be Active in Communities
There are several active communities spread across various social media platforms that can help you promote your event or boost ticket sales. These communities could be Facebook groups, Twitter chats, LinkedIn groups, or Google+ communities. They allow you to connect with other businesses and like-minded people all in one convenient spot.
Be active in these communities and interact with any influencers you find. These are the people with larger followers. You want to get involved before you start promoting your event because this involvement can encourage other people to interact with you and share your promotional materials. In turn, you could find new event attendees or extend your reach out to more groups or communities.
9. Make and Share Event Hashtags
Twitter is a very active platform that has one of the easiest and fastest ways for companies to expand their organic traffic. You don't want to pull random hashtags in for your event. Instead, you want to concentrate on doing a little research and finding out which hashtags are popular in your niche or industry, as well as more generic ones.
You can incorporate both of these hashtags into your event to gain reach. It'll also boost your chances of having your event show up in the search results. Since 75% of social media users actively use hashtags, this can be a powerful tool. You do want to make sure that your hashtag isn't already linked to an event or person though because this can divert attention away from your promotion.
10. Create Contests to Generate Interest
Finally, you can create and use contests to sell tickets online and promote your event. Most people look for events or brands with a lot of great reviews or buzz, and a contest is an excellent way to encourage activity. A contest on Instagram or Twitter encourages users to promote your event and engage with your brand.
You could give away event swag or even one or two tickets to the event itself. Offer incentives for people to share your promotion, and make sure that you follow through with your promises. Ask contest winners to share photographs of themselves at the event and feature them in your promotional material. The possibilities are virtually endless.
To get your next event started and set up your online ticket management system with Ticketebo, click here. For questions or more information contact our friendly team today!
