All this time we have been blogging about reaching out with social media to market our events. Even the best of the best sometimes requires an opposite approach! While social media may be the trend of the times, there are instances when it does require a push start to get it going. When all technology fails, it is back to the conventional and practical ways. Event management companies will do well to note that though they do depend on social media, sometimes barriers need to be crossed when it fails to achieve the required target.
Connecting your events to social media
The flip side of the coin is that sometimes social media does not give the impact as that of a live event. Certain events require the significance of settings, audio and visual as well as direct human integration. In these cases, an event is required to accentuate the impact followed by a social media drive. Common obstacles faced are lack of the touch, sound and smell elements. Food and beverage related events perform better when it is an actual event where there are demonstrations of culinary skills, food tasting opportunities etc. The best strategy for such projects to encourage social media reach would be using the event itself to entice followings and public interest. An event management solution to this would be to introduce your social media site during the event. Spend a portion of the event time to educate or notify the attendees that they can find out more about the product/service by following up and coming events on the social site. Encourage them to participate in your social media drive by offering freebies of interest, additional content and information that they can download and even more. Prepare your event planning in advance by incorporating a strategic social media itinerary.
Highlighting interactions to social media in your events
An unconventional event solution to drive social media reach is to have attendees at your events do an on the spot “Click Like” campaign at the registration counter. Event companies can use this method to increase user participation and ensure a good following to their social sites. In return for the effort, the event company can prepare door gifts that will be given to those who participated in the campaign. This nifty little idea can also be incorporated into your event management system to keep track of attendee databases. This database is the essential to all your future plans for other events and projects. You can use it to send out newsletters, invites and get feedback. Best of all, you can later use this information from the database to create share campaigns that will further drive the social reach campaigns you are already targeting!
