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ocial media is the one channel that really helps you build up the excitement for your event, improve participation, and boost engagement for your upcoming virtual event.
Your objective through your online conference or meetup might be to generate brand buzz or build a community or generate revenue. To achieve any of these objectives, here are a few brilliant ways to use social media for marketing your event and achieve your goals.
1. Influencers Social Media Marketing
Tap into the power of influencer marketing to access newer communities & build credibility in those networks. Request influencers to promote the upcoming event by writing about it in their own words, on their platform of choice.
For even better results, you could create a dedicated co-branded video with them (an interview or a case-study) and ask them to promote it multiple times to their networks in a an organic (or even paid) manner. .
Tip: It’s crucial to choose the right platform & influencer based on your niche, event topic & target audience. Like how Instagram isn’t for knowledge professionals and sometimes just a few influencers on 1 platform can do the trick.
2. Organic Social Promotions
Create an event calendar that lays out all the different types & formats of posts you will create before, during & after your event. Post types can include marketing your event, speaker updates, sponsorship & partnership banners, key stats about your industry, agenda, highlight videos & schedule updates along with promotional offers or giveaway contests.
Build a 360^ integrated social media strategy across all relevant channels. Make sure you have a plan to create, publish, promote & measure the organic efforts. Ensure that these appear at regular intervals in your calendar and start much in advance before the big day.
Choose Your Social Media Platform(s) Wisely
Choose your bouquet of platforms well to fit in with your industry, niche, event themes & target audience. Some platforms are just great for sparking discussions while others have a higher engagement compared to platforms that drive more direct traffic.. Here’s a bird’s eye view to help you pick yours:
- Instagram -If your promotions present opportunities for striking visuals, then Instagram could be a great fit. Instagram is a visual platform, powered by photos, videos and visually appealing graphics. Send out older event photos or colourful graphics to build awareness and recall.
But beware, the actual traffic & sales expectations from Instagram would be a lot lower than other platforms.
- LinkedIn – This is the social media platform for professional and business networking. It is the best place to announce corporate news and events. If you are planning an online event for knowledge professionals who would most likely come from a business or technical background, then you absolutely should focus on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn can help you build a relevant audience of decision-makers, professionals and executives. Pro-tip: Write long form, genuine posts & stories on LinkedIn (100-250 words) derived from personal experience. Such posts can drive a high amount of value & traffic to your event.
- Twitter – Twitter is the medium to have rapid, quick conversations. Even though Twitter has a lot fewer total active users in comparison to Facebook, LinkedIn or even Instagram, what it does offer is a very passionate & engaged audience.
It’s relatively easier for your post or content to trend on Twitter & get picked up by influencers or celebrities which in turn could drive a ton of real traffic & value for your event. Make sure you try different post formats including tweet chats & tweet storms.
Request influencers to share posts about your event or retweet yours. If they have attended previous events, they can share positive vibes about them or simply share interesting points.
- Facebook – Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world and what it means is that theoretically, every possible target customer of yours would be present (if not active) on Facebook. It also enables you to target messages with laser precision to target audiences through paid advertisements. You can share comments, event messages, involve page followers, and even create an event page.
- Snapchat– Snapchat is the go-to platform if you’re looking to attract teenagers and younger adults. The user base is highly engaged & substantial in size. But it also needs a constant stream of quality content.
Pick Snapchat if your virtual event is meant to attract a younger demographic & if you have the resources to create plenty of short-lived content. Promote your event by using Snapchat’s Geo-Filter feature to target new customers who have not been part of your promotions or events in the past.
3. Leverage Paid Social Advertisements
Utilize paid ads across multiple social media channels to reach a more targeted audience. Paid social media ads have a higher impact than organic advertising and will greatly increase the visibility of your online event. Use popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube to run paid social advertising campaigns. They allow you to target specific groups based on demographics, interests, and behaviors, ensuring your event promotion message reaches the right audience.
Facebook/Instagram allows you to market your event with different ad formats that cater to different stages of the customer journey, such as Image Ads, Video Ads, Carousel Ads, Lead Ads, and more. Using diverse ad formats helps you attract your audience’s attention through a variety of visual experiences and engagement patterns.
LinkedIn is ideal for B2B events and professional networking. This platform offers several ad formats suitable for promoting events such as Single Image Ads, Carousel Ads, and Video Ads. LinkedIn allows you to target an audience based on job title, industry, and professional skill, ensuring you reach specific demographics.
YouTube is a video-centric platform, offering primarily video ad formats, such as skippable, non-skippable in-stream ads, bumper ads, display ads, in-feed video ads, and more. In short, YouTube ads are ideal for reaching users who love consuming content through videos.
You can run a paid advertising campaign across any of the platforms to reach an even more potential audience. Just make sure you’re aware of which platforms your target audience is most engaged on.
4. Hashtags
Posts with hashtags receive twice as much engagement than without them. It becomes much easier to track the buzz created around your event by determining how frequently the hashtag was used.
Make sure you create a few hashtags that cover your key brand name (or event name), primary USP (or topic/theme) and the target audience. This combination would ensure that your posts get picked up by those interested in both your topic & who are a part of your target user persona.
Create awareness and discussion around these hashtags – place small competitions to test recall of these. Promote hashtags on all your media campaigns like emails, print materials, or billboard advertising.
5. Build the Excitement
Make it convenient for your customers to locate you on different sites through clever use of icons or symbols which are unique to your crusade. Be bold in your email communication and newsletters using these icons on the page, which are suitably the bottom of it. Repeated views of your logos and graphics will arouse curiosity and then build up the excitement. A small group of highly active & dedicated advocates can do more than you expect!
6. Use Facebook & LinkedIn Groups
Find communities on Facebook & LinkedIn that might be interested in your event. Engage with them and establish your brand as a thought leader in the industry. Don’t use these groups to overly market your event, but project how the event can benefit them subtly. Genuinely contribute & ask for feedback so the community is involved in your success.
7. Profile check
“Social media can be the most effective channel to promote your #VirtualEvent, build excitement & improve attendance”
Social media can be the most effective channel to promote your #VirtualEvent, build excitement & improve attendance
8. Personalize
9. Go Live with Behind-the-Scenes Content:
Going live with behind-the-scenes (BTS) content can be a highly effective approach. And it is a new way to reach out to a target audience, especially for product launch events. A behind-the-scenes live stream can quickly generate excitement for your new product, spark interest among your audience, and enhance the likelihood of a successful launch. You can go live on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube to show off your BTS footage.
When you show your audience the efforts that you put into creating your product through live video, it helps foster a genuine connection, build trust in you, and engage your audience in real-time prior to the event. Additionally, through live BTS, you can introduce your team to an audience, and allow them to interact with your team members through chat, making people’s experiences more memorable.
10. Encourage User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) is a type of content that is created by users, rather than by a brand or company, and often shared on social media platforms in the form of images and videos.
Encourage event participants to post about your event on their social media platforms. Ask them to post about why they are excited to attend the event. When their followers come across posts about your event, they will be encouraged to participate in the event as well.
Furthermore, repost the best user-generated content on your event landing page/website Facebook & Instagram stories, and LinkedIn Feed. It will help build social proof and further amplify your event’s reach to more potential participants.
Conclusion
Social media marketing plays a big role in getting the virtual event out. It not only boosts the visibility of your online event but also reaches your event to a massive potential audience. Social media lets you design customized promotion campaigns based on demographics, interests, and behaviors, guaranteeing that your message reaches the right audience.
In this post, we’ve covered many of the practices of promoting virtual events via social media. From influencer marketing and organic social promotion to paid advertising and using Facebook & LinkedIn groups, each tactic will assist you reach the ideal target market and capture the audience’s attention toward your event.
FAQ
Begin promoting your virtual event on social media 4 weeks in advance. It will help create buzz around the event and maximize the event registration.
You should track post reach, impressions, video views, post reactions, comments, shares, follower count, and profile visits.
Amazing Tips. Surely gonna follow them!
The blog has been written-very well!
Social media is flourishing well in promoting brand name and product these. Informative blog.
Very useful tips have been given in the blog. I’ll try using them in real. 🙂
Social Media always generates the excitement in the minds of the managers as well as the audience as it is a platform that keep the public updated. This blog might go trending 🙂
Very nicely written!