Overcome your Event Management Problems with Effective Tips

Have volunteers handy

There is always so much work to be done, small things to be taken care of, last minute errands to be run. Believe me; you need lots of hands, so have as many around as possible. Here are a few areas these volunteers could be used – tear down, cleanup, welcoming guests, seating guests, handling the lights, music.

Have a Timeline

A timeline is like a comfort snack, literally. If you know when exactly the flowers will arrive, the speakers will arrive, the DJ comes in, and volunteers will arrive, that’s a lot of relief.

Meet with your volunteers

This is an important and overlooked tip. Everyone is in a hurry; everyone thinks they know their job well. Well, it is best if you could plan a 30 minute meeting before the event to make sure all of you are on the same page. You will be surprised at how you can catch some issues just in time. It would also be a good idea to meet with your event personnel (caterers, custodial services and the like).

Carry a Telephone List

You will thank me for this one. I know you have it on the tip of your tongue. But still, while at the event it is so easy to feel like you are losing it. It doesn’t hurt to have a small notepad with all the important numbers of security, caterers, vendors and the like.

Reach as Early as possible

It doesn’t hurt to reach early. It can be kind of a Zen moment, if you can take a few deep breaths and relax. Go through your checklist, check on things, have a meeting with your volunteers.

Event Management problems are unavoidable. With experience, after having handled a few events you will learn how to handle your emotions in all sorts of crises. You will learn to avoid mistakes and feel you know how to handle certain situations better.

Facebook Advertising Tips For Events

The amount of potential customers you can reach through Facebook for free is a constant battle against 

1) the increasing amount of content published by everyone else, and
2) personalized news feeds limiting content to only what Facebook deems the most relevant.

And this all makes sense, Facebook was built for people and their friends, not businesses and potential customers – it puts users first.

1. Identify Your Goals

First and foremost you need to establish what you hope to achieve by advertising on Facebook. For example you could focus on creating more awareness of your brand leading up to your event, try to get more website traffic, increase video views, drive event app installs, or simply to make sure you have a full house by advertising ticket sales. 

Once you know what your goals are, you can create campaigns that match your objectives. If you have no idea what you’re trying to do, your chances of succeeding are pretty low.

2. Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is the best way to advertise successfully to existing customers, and also to seek out people who would be interested in your event. Luckily, on Facebook, you don’t have to guess anything.

Facebook collects information on user’s behaviour taking into account explicit actions (profile information, status updates, brand page likes, groups joined) and implicit signals (devices used, subjects of websites visited, your location)

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Custom audience targeting is a feature of Facebook Advertising that allows you to use this specific information to find the perfect target market for your events.

3. Reach Past Attendees And Website/App Visitors

If you’ve organized similar events before, you are likely to have access to past attendee’s email addresses and phone numbers already. Upload a txt file or csv with phone numbers and/or email addresses to target ads to existing customers.

In the Advert Manager tools you can easily create a Facebook pixel to place in the header tag of your event’s website template or app to create a user list to target your adverts.

4. Create ‘Lookalike’ Audiences

You can also set up ‘lookalike audiences’ who are people with similar attributes, behaviours and signals associated with their Facebook profiles to Facebook profiles of your best customers and therefore likely to be interested too. You do this by using the list created with email addresses and phone numbers.

5. Speak Directly To The Audience

Create small audience segments to advertise too. This means you can create content that appeals to certain groups and advertise directly to them. Speaking directly to someone about a subject they care about is the best way to grab their attention and get them to take action.

6. Boost Posts To Gain Popularity

A great way of generating social proof for your event is ‘boosting’ posts, which is a Facebook Advertising feature that allows you to boost content from your events page to user’s news feed, making it more visible.

 By doing this rather than relying on organic reach your content is more likely to get noticed and liked by the right people, therefore giving your event’s Facebook page a far more popular reputation.

7. Determine What Creative To Use

Over time you’ll learn what types of content and ad styles work well on Facebook for your target audience. Headlines are important, for example lists and click bait style headlines seem to make their way across Facebook with ease. 

Images and videos are the best way to grab the attention of your audience, and therefore making them more likely to react positively to a call to action.To continue to give your ad campaigns the best chance of being successful you’ll want to refresh images after a while to prevent ad fatigue.

8. Design For Context

For an ad to be effective you have to consider more than it’s content. For it to be successful you’ll also need to consider how it will look against the rest of the Facebook page, especially next to all the competing noise.

9. Design For Mobile

No other platform owns mobile devices like Facebook. Four out of five users log in via their phone. If you’re advertising on Facebook and haven’t designed for mobile, you’re drastically limiting what can be achieved.

10. Designate The Landing Page

If you haven’t already determined a landing page, create a page or designate one that’s relevant to the campaigns you are running. This is really important to ensure the that Facebook don’t reject the ads due to little relevance or you don’t get a high bounce rate which will be a waste of time and money.

11. Have An Engagement Strategy

If you receive feedback and comments about one of your ads, or your campaign as a whole, then have an engagement strategy. If there are several comments about the same issue with your ad, then it’s obviously something that needs improvements.

12. Don’t Just Let It Be

Once you’ve built your audience segments and started advertising to them it’s important that you fight the urge to relax. Unlike Google Adwords where there is a steady flow of new users to show your adverts and campaigns just require fine tuning, with Facebook Advertising you need to monitor the ROI of the campaign and audience so that you cherry pick rather than exhaust the segment you’re targeting. 

Always analyse and continue to seek out more potential segments to advertise to next.
You should also perform regular checks of your landing page URL’s once or twice a week to make sure that users are being redirected to active and relevant pages.

13. Test And Optimise

Facebook automatically rotates each of the active ads in a campaign, so after a while you’ll soon see which ads are appealing to your audience, and those that aren’t. Do some further tests and see what aspects of your ads need improvements, whether it’s the images, fonts or copy – don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board if necessary.

If you continue to test a number of different ads and find a variable that is getting a great response, stick with it, but tweak the other details of the ad to keep things fresh. By doing this you’ll be keeping the aspects of the ad that are already popular, and changing other aspects such as fonts and images to make a greater impact.

14. Control Your Budget

To advertise successfully over a long period of time it will require time, effort and of course, money. This is why it’s important you control your budget, and know how to prevent overspending. In the Advert Manager tools, click on ‘create a new campaign’ and then either select ‘lifetime budget’ or set your daily amount to a manageable amount.

15. Track Campaigns In Google Analytics

From the beginning, tag your URLs with tracking codes to track future visits from paid Facebook traffic. If you don’t, Google Analytics will combine referral and paid social traffic together.

Twitter Advertising To Get In Front Of Attendees

Cast A Narrow Net

Audience targeting through social media advertising, is one of the most powerful developments in advertising. This not only helps you to target a specific audience based on age or location, but also around interests and passions. Connections on Twitter tend to share similar skills, hobbies, interests, and job roles, rather than being based on family and friendship. So it is easier to be picky when building an audience to maximize engagement with your advert.

Advertise To Followers Of Similar Events

Don’t be afraid to mine your competitor’s accounts for a target audience – poaching followers is fair game. Twitter targeting is especially valuable if you’re looking to target people based on their networks.

Excite Sponsors By Including Them In Promoted Tweets

Everybody included in a tweet gets notifications when it is ‘shared’ and ‘liked’. Advertise one of your organic tweets that includes their Twitter IDs, and they’ll notice the activity around the tweet compared to ones on their own account. And they won’t know that the boost will be down to Twitter Advertising. This tactic is a particularly good way to excite smaller sponsors/suppliers or those not social media savvy.

Beta-Test Your Ads For Free First

You’re likely to be publishing multiple tweets and Facebook posts every day. Some of these messages will resonate with followers; others won’t. Monitor which ones are being clicked, shared, and commented on. These high-performing organic posts make the best candidates for your social ads. If you’re not sharing content, tweet more often – and pay for the best performing updates.

These tweets all have the same purpose, use similar words, and were given equal amounts of budget. However the tweet engagement levels and costs per engagement shows that if tested for free first, and then the entire budget went on the top two performing tweets instead of sharing across all, the budget would have gone far further and the tweets would have got far more engagements.

Dividing your advertising budget equally across all posts is a losing strategy, it doesn’t make sense. First, establish a minimum threshold of engagement on free tweets, and don’t waste your cash on anything that doesn’t perform better.

Twitter Users Love Live Events

Don’t unhook from the internet just because your event has started. Use any and all opportunities to communicate with attendees and those who were unable to make it. Attendees and suppliers are far more likely to see promoted tweets than just organic ones, and this will continue to build your event’s brand with everybody for future events.

Marketing in the moment can be discourage for brands used to planning well in advance. One trick here to is to plan for expected moments during the event before they happen. That way, you can resource your team around key moments to make the most of them.

Use Twitter Analytic's, Set Goals, and Meet Them

To be successful on Twitter as a brand you need to work out what’s working for you, and what isn’t – analytic will show you where to concentrate your efforts. By analyzing how users are reacting to certain tweets, you’ll soon be able to narrow down a short list of what works well for your business.
Analytic's gives you the power to learn about the audience you’re trying to reach out to, and how you can be successful with each and every tweet.

Be Aware Of Ad Algorithms

Post engagement and spending your budget quickly will improve your reach and reduce the cost. Advertising newer tweets and higher levels of engagement gives you a higher quality-adjusted bid (the more recent the tweet and higher levels of engagement, the more aggressively Twitter will show your ad at a lower cost). With Twitter Advertising focus on winning the day rather than spreading the budget across the week.

Talk Like A Real Person

Remember, Twitter is a social medium. For higher engagement levels, use social speak for all of your paid (and unpaid) posts. Include links to interesting blog posts or better articles written by others published somewhere else, rather than solely promoting commercial pages – to keep it conversational. 

Re-marketing

Like Facebook, Twitter is a great place to advertise to users that have visited your event’s site but not bought tickets. This involves setting up a pixel (you can easily create a Twitter pixel to place in the header tag of your event’s website template) and target people on Twitter that have visited your website. Since they’ll already be familiar with your brand, they’ll be much more receptive and likely to engage the second time around.



Twitter Advertising is a great tool for laser-focused targeting to amplify what you are already doing. Cheap, simple and accessible to all, it allows event organizers engage with attendees before, during, and after the event.

10 commandments of corporate event planning

 Below are the list of Commandments of Event Planning.

1.Networking

The vast majority of excellent event planners are also great net-workers. That’s because a large network of local suppliers, trusted colleagues, and friends can make the difference between success and failure. Having someone to rely on when things get tough and know who to call when a client requests something unusual is indispensable. Always be on a lookout for potential partners you could connect with.

2. Location

A great location is like a beautiful dress you wear to dazzle your partner on a date. It has to fit the mood, accentuate all the right things, and, most importantly, match the character of the person wearing it. If your clients and visitors instantly fall in love with the venue, you’ll enter the event with a group of joyful people who look forward to everything that’s to come.

3. Objectives

Always be prepared and carefully consider every event with all details that you can think of. But keep in mind that, no matter how good your plans are, something usually goes wrong. That’s why you need a backup plan in place and never resort to panic.

4. Signing up for the Event Should Be Effortless

A reliable event management software will help you simplify event registration and provide your attendees with excellent user experience.

5. Follow Trends

Humans are social creatures. We take notice of what other people do, what they like, and how they behave.As an event planner, it’s your job to follow latest trends, so you can always easily come up with new ideas and surprise your customers with creative thinking.

6. Cultural Differences

Event planners must have a good understanding of the differences between cultures and how one thing may be a big hit in one culture and be considered as completely inappropriate in other. There’s nothing worse than making visitors feel uncomfortable at an event that was organized just for them.

7. Better to Have More Hands Than Not Enough

Budget issues aside, you should always ensure that you have enough staff available to keep up with the event and guarantee that everything will flow smoothly. However, not all staff members are created equal and some inexperienced workers may cause you nothing but troubles.

8. Always Gather Feedback

Attendees of your event should leave with great memories, and you, as an event organizer, should leave with lots of feedback that will help you make the next event even better. Event management software is an essential tool for this job.

9. Communicate and Listen

The satisfaction of all clients is the number one priority. You may have your own ideas how to run things, but they don’t mean much if they differ from those of your clients. Learn how to listen attentively to really understand what client’s goals are and communicate in such a way that will make the client feel appreciated and understood.

10. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Marketing

Marketing is how you get recognizes, and it’s also how you get new clients. Every event is an opportunity how to market your services and create a portfolio with pictures of happy visitors and great-looking events. These can be shared on your website, social media accounts, or used in printed promotion material.

Best Guide to Relieve Event Stress

Being an #event-prof is one of the most rewarding jobs; however, it is also one of the most stressful. Once you admit the stress that comes with the job, you are able to positively address and manage the it, preventing burnout. Below are a few ways to help keep you balanced, relaxed and motivated.

Exercise

Exercising doesn’t have to be strenuous, include a gym membership, or take up a large chunk of your day. It can be an easy 10 minute walk during lunch, some yoga stretching in your bedroom before your morning shower, or quick 5-10 minute workouts without weights.

Healthy Eating

Healthy eating and exercise go hand in hand. And also need to be aware of how food affects your daily life. Certain foods boost your energy and metabolism. Caffeine and sugary foods can give you a quick burst of energy, but also leads to a big crash.
Be aware of the foods you are eating. Make sure you are putting good, healthy energy into your body throughout the day.

Sleep

Sleep is a very important aspect to your life. Make sure you are practicing good sleep habits. Set limits to your work day so you do not suffer the effects of sleep deprivation. Though the actual number depends on each individual, the National Sleep Foundation recommends 6-10 hours of sleep each night.

Naps

Naps and siestas are also pretty awesome (if you are able to take one). Change Your Life says you can receive great benefits from napping. A 20-minute power nap is good for alertness and motor learning skills, while a 30 to 60 minute nap is good for decision-making skills. Longer naps (60 to 90 minutes) help with solving creative problems.

Deep Breathing

If you are feeling stressed, simple deep breathing and meditation. After just a few minutes of deep breathing and simple meditation exercises, you may find that you are able to boost your focus. One simple deep breathing exercise is the 4-7-8 exercise. After exhaling completing through your mouth (make a whooshing sound), inhale quietly through your nose while counting to four in your head. Hold your breath while counting to seven in your head, then exhale completely through your mouth (make a whooshing sound) while counting to eight in your head. Repeat this cycle 4 times.

Reading

Reading is an excellent way to get away and explore a whole new world. You can pick up an actual book or use technology to read on your mobile devices. Reading allows you to engross yourself in a story and give your brain time to relax from the stresses at work or home. Listening to audiobooks is also a great way to relax while in the car, on the train, or just about anywhere.

Hobbies

As we get deeper into events and projects, our hobbies tend to take a back seat, or even totally disappear. While being focused and working hard is important, you should also find outlets that help you relax and take a break. Rediscovering a long-lost hobby can be very gratifying. Whether it’s camping, archery, bowling or knitting, find something relaxing to do that makes you happy. Is there something that you’ve always wanted to try? What are you waiting for?.

Give Yourself Permission To Relax

By allowing self to relax, and finding other things that made happy and lead to work more effectively.

Friends and Family Time

Don’t forget your friends and family! If you find you are missing family meals or activities, schedule those times into your calendar. And don’t forget your furry family members! Taking time to play or snuggle with your pet is a great way to relax. Whether it is an afternoon at the park playing with kids, a movie night with your spouse, or drinks with your friends, finding time to spend with loved ones is a great way to relax.

Spa

Taking some time to get pampered at a spa is a fun way to relieve stress as well. While it may cost a bit more than other options, you don’t have to go all out. Manicures, pedicures, or even short massages are low cost spa options. You can even pamper yourself at home with a nice long bath or giving yourself a manicure or pedicure.

Take Time Off

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to shut down and get away. If it doesn’t make you too anxious, turn the computer off, and put the phone and tablets down. Turn off the constant notifications and get away for a few minutes. Enjoy the silence.

TV/Movies

While too much TV or movie time can become a problem, having a favorite show or two is a great way to schedule relaxation into your day. You can even put it on your calendar! If you enjoy movies, going out with some your friends to catch a new release is also a great way to unwind and relax. Watching TV shows or movies also allows you to step outside of your world and see other creative minds at work.

Gaming

Whether you like console games like PlayStation or Xbox, games on your phone, or old school board games, gaming is a great way to relax and get your mind off work. You can game with friends, by yourself, and at any time of day! Sometimes taking a quick break to play a game on my mobile phone helps me to relax and get back to work with more focus.

Guide to Conduct Inbound Marketing Campaign

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is fairly simple – offer high-quality content that draws the attention of prospects and turn them into customers – many attempts at its execution fail short in one way or another.

There are three main questions that you need to constantly keep asking yourself in order to create a solid inbound marketing campaign.

Whom(“To whom am I marketing to?")??

Each person on this planet has different priorities, goals, and aspirations; what one person perceives to be of great worth may seem totally insignificant to someone else.That’s why you need to carefully consider who exactly is your target customer and craft a realistic persona according to your findings. Imagine that you are writing a novel, but, instead of your imagination, you have to use real evidence as a source material for your character.

What does this character like? What would grab his or her attention and even lead to procrastination? Is there something this person really hates?You have to keep constantly refining your buyer persona, to keep up with new trends and changes on the market. It’s not an easy job, but it’s the foundation upon which everything else stands.

What( “What added value am I offering?”)??

Once again, the keyword is “value”. The content itself doesn’t matter nearly as much as we would often like to think. Instead, what truly matters is what your prospects see as valuable. What you offer has to align the persona that you’ve decided on.

Figuring out what content would work best is then simply a matter of constant trial and error. You can get a good idea of what could work by looking at other sites that target a similar audience, but, at the end of the day, is only through experience and analysis of many important metrics, such as social shares and visitors, that you learn how to attract the most attention.

How(“How do I offer this value?”)??

Your inbound marketing strategy is like a large funnel with a very wide opening that gets progressively narrower. The opening of the funnel represents the type of content and means of distribution that are accessible to as many people as possible.As the funnel gets narrower, you have to start separating your audience into various groups according to their individual preferences.

A/B testing will help you find out what works and what doesn’t without putting off too many people.
You reach the end of the funnel when you convince someone that your content or product is exactly what they (and possible everyone else) need.

How to Find the Right Sponsor for Your Event

Sponsors can help you reducing the overall costs of the event, increasing the number of attendees and improving the user experience.

Let’s have a look at the main steps you should follow to find the best sponsors for your next event!

Understand Who Is Your Target Audience

Figuring out your audience is the first step to choose the right sponsor for your event. Defining your target will help you finding the sponsor that want to reach that specific audience. Once defined, start searching for companies and local businesses that could be interested in reaching it. Remember that the main reasons why companies sponsor events are:

• Build/improve brand reputation
• Boost visibility
• Increase brand loyalty
• Display products/services
• Encourage trials

Identify Sponsors’ Personas

In order to identify the sponsors’ personas, you have to answer this question: “What makes a perfect sponsor for my event?” The answer depends on several factors: size and type of event, audience, benefits from sponsorship, your objectives and so on.

That said, you have to figure out how significant is the investment you want to obtain from the sponsor. Taking into account the size of your event, we recommend you to shortlist the potential candidates based on their dimension.

Large companies may be more likely to make big investment, but can also be difficult to be sponsored by them if you are not well known and relevant in your industry. On the other side, smaller companies may not allocate a big amount for event sponsorship, but they can provide gadget and visual materials (helping you reducing part of your costs) and are certainly more open to raise awareness and display their products.

Reach Out Your Prospective Sponsors

Now that you know who are the prospective sponsors to contact, get on the phone and blast emails to publicize your event as a unique marketing opportunity for them.

If you decide to call them, start with a short introduction, explaining the type of event you’re planning, the audience you want to reach and focus on how they will benefit from it. If they are interested, explain in details every single aspect and try to propose them some good fresh ideas to promote their brand. Once you’ve made all the calls, review your notes and prepare a list of companies you will solicit.

Same rule of thumb if you decide to blast email: be short, concise and focus on the benefits for the companies. Try to customize your emails and make them easy-to-understand. If you’ve already organized events with sponsors, attach a list of the sponsors and a brief description of the target audience you reached.

Tips to Avoid the Most Common Event Planning Mistakes

As an Event Planner ,your job is to make sure everything runs smoothly right, from the preparation phase to the end of the event. You have probably done you best to avoid mistakes, but it does not hurt to make yourself ready for sudden changes. Here are some tips to avoid the most common event planning mistakes.

 Do not overload the event with guest speakers

Getting one or two inspirational speakers are good to start the event, but overloading it with speeches may bring discomfort to your attendees.Please remember that most people visit any public event with networking in mind; it is their chance to broaden networks and social circles with new business partners, friends, etc. One of the most common mistakes is monotone planning; do it more carefully and make time for networking, speakers, and other activities.

 Double-check

 As an event planner, it is indeed your job to make it happen yet you are not allowed to be entirely sure without double checking the preparation and checking again after that. Well-managed preparation gives you enough time to rest so you are not in a hurry until the last minute and do multiple re-checking. Many things require a re-check such as venue readiness, spelling on company’s name, caterer’s preparation, and more. There is separate team in the event management system assigned to different tasks, but it is your responsibility to notice even the tiniest mistakes, and you can only do that by careful detailed re-checking.

 Discuss the Plans with Clients

 If you are working on an event for individual clients, make time to meet in person and discuss the plans. Clients need to explain their events to planner, and then you deliver what they want within the given time-frame. However, miscommunication leads to differences and this means unhappy clients. Keep the clients updated with the plans and preparations; if there is something the clients don’t like, you save time from making unnecessary changes.

 Have Plan B

 During discussion with clients, tell them that you need a plan B to anticipate the unexpected. Plan  for  eventuality with clients, so they are still happy with your service regardless of what happens during the event.

 Be Prepared for Changes

There is going to be unexpected changes during the event. Mistakes tend to occur during planning, but sudden changes can also ruin timing and budget. Even a small change can affect the on-going process, time-frame, and eventually overall cost of the event. Good event management software, when used properly, can help you calculate the budget and the consequences of any sudden change quickly, and therefore you can make necessary adjustments with ease.

Follow-up

Last but not least, obtain a feedback immediately after the event. You may want to make note on your event planning software about things that you did well to make clients happy and other aspects you can improve for the next event.

How to make your Online Marketing success

Online marketing has changed the event landscape, making it possible for you to reach potential attendees on the other side of the world.

Get Other People To Market Your Event Online

 

Run a Contest

Encourage potential attendees to share a picture or comment on a status for a chance to win a prize.you can offer free tickets, VIP experiences, or anything else you imagine; just remember that the better the prize, the more willing people will be to share your event. You can run a contest on one or multiple social networks or do it directly on your site.

Reach out to Influencers – Correctly

We all know that influencer marketing is a great way to drum up publicity. Instead of sending a generic request to 100 influencers, send personalized requests to the 20 influencers who are the best fit. Be sure to research their following and their content. Then, provide them with content that is relevant to their audience. If you want them to write a post, give them a unique angle that fits their style. If you want them to post a tweet, send a few pre-written options. The less work they have to do, the better.

Pay Affiliates to Promote Your Event

Another great way to reach out to influencers is to give them a reason to care. Not only can you offer them complimentary tickets for promoting your event, but you can also pay them to be affiliates. You set up a special URL for each affiliate to use in his or her promotion. Then, your affiliates earn a portion of each ticket sale they refer. People are much more willing to share your event when they have the opportunity to earn money.

Add Social Share After Sale Buttons

When someone buys a ticket to your event, he or she is already excited. Turn that excitement into referrals by including social sharing on the last page of your sales channel.Be sure to include pre-populated social media actions that require minimal work to get the most shares.

Offer Discounts When Attendees Refer Friends

Like influencers, attendees are more willing to share when you give them something in return. Consider setting up a refer-a-friend promotion where an attendee has the opportunity to earn back a portion of his or her ticket cost by getting friends to register for the event. If you would rather not offer money back on tickets, you could always offer a VIP experience or swag bag for groups of 2 or more who register together.

Use Social Media to Market Your Event Online 

 

Target More than Just Facebook and Twitter

Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and live streaming sites like Periscope and Blab provide active communities with less competition. Optimizing your content so that it can be shared across multiple social media networks means you’ll reach more people. In addition to making sure your content translates well across mediums, tailor your approach to each site’s strengths in order to maximize your return.

Host a Pre-Event Event on Social Media

The best way to give people a taste of your event is to host a pre-event event. Whether this is a Twitter party, a behind-the-scenes Periscope broadcast, or a Blab with some of your key speakers, be sure to advertise it across as many platforms as possible. Don’t forget to send a special link to everyone who abandoned the registration process without purchasing a ticket, encouraging them to attend your pre-event event for free to see what you are all about. Of course, the more exciting your pre-event event, the more hyped people will be to attend your live event. You could always combine your event with a contest for an experience that will really get guests (and potential guests) talking.

Private Facebook Group Exclusive to Attendees

 A great way to add value to your event experience with almost no work on your part is to create a private Facebook group for attendees. After someone registers, send them the link to the group in a follow-up email. Verify registrations before approving requests to join the group to keep it exclusive. Schedule periodic posts to the group to keep people engaged and create documents where people can request ride or room shares if that is relevant to your audience.

Appropriate Hashtag

Do your research because your hashtag is a huge part of your online marketing. Once you identify your hashtag, use it in social media post where hashtags are appropriate. Encourage attendees to use the hashtag, and repost some of their content – with permission, of course. Be sure to incorporate the hashtag into your social media bios and all branded materials so that it becomes embedded into your attendees’ minds.

Create An Awesome Video

Video dominates social media, especially on Facebook. Create a professional video about your event. Make it fun, rather than overly promotional. The goal here is to garner attention, to make people FEEL something that will make them want to learn more. Upload the video directly to Facebook for increased views and virality. Also, upload to Vimeo and Youtube so that you can maximize your reach. You can also embed the video into the relevant section(s) of your website.   

Follow Relevant People After You Post

You just posted the best tweet in the history of hashtags. Now is the perfect time to follow relevant people because when they click on your profile, they will see your brilliant (and targeted) tweet at the very top of your profile. Find people to follow by looking for influencers in your event’s niche and following their followers. These people are already following someone in the right niche, so they are more likely to follow you and be interested in your event. Don’t forget to use the Twitter ‘Pin’ button too.

Schedule Social Media

Use scheduling tools such as Buffer, Tailwind, and Hootsuite to save yourself some time. Schedule your social media… but remember that it is still SOCIAL media. While scheduling social media is a great timesaver, don’t become too distant. You still need to take time each day (perhaps multiple times each day) to respond to questions and post timely updates. You’ve got to be a part of the conversation or people will stop talking about you.

Leverage Your Network To Market Your Event Online

 

 Promote Your Speakers

Your speakers are a huge part of your event, and their names and stories will sell tickets. Interview them on your podcast, allow them to guest post on the site, or create a round-up post featuring all of your speakers’ opinions on a topic. Be sure to link to your speakers’ websites and/or social media. Your speakers get exposure; your readers get pumped; you get sales. Win-win-win.

Help Your Speakers Promote Themselves

Create images that combine your event branding with your speaker’s name and photo. Send these images (in multiple sizes) to your speakers for them to use in their own social media posts or websites. You can also create a quote image featuring their face and one of their best quotes along with your event hashtag. Share it on your social media networks, and then share it with your speakers in case they would like to use it on their own social media networks.

Exchange Tickets for Services

For events that don’t have budgets for videographers and professional photographers offer free tickets to your event in exchange for online marketing necessities. Having great photos and video will do wonders for your online marketing, and unless you can do them yourself, you need to find a professional. If you don’t have the money to invest, try to find someone willing to exchange services for event tickets.

Ask Your Email Contacts To Promote

Announce your event to your email contacts and ask them to forward your message to people who might find it useful or tweet a pre-written tweet included within the email. Be sure to thank your contacts in advance for their support in helping you launch the event, and remember to help them out when you receive similar emails in the future.

Market Your Event Online During & After The Event

 

 Be Social During the Event

Your smartphone is your best friend during an event. Take pictures, tweet quotes, live stream impromptu interviews between sessions, and interact with your attendees who will all be doing the same. Encourage attendees to be social at the event by providing Twitter and Instagram handles for all vendors and speakers on a cheat sheet or in your event app. Follow your hashtag and like, retweet, or share user-generated content to increase buzz. Attendees will keep posting if they get a lot of engagement on their posts.

Monitor Mentions After the Event

If this is an annual event, you will want to keep working after the event is over. Follow mentions of your event on blogs and social media over the following weeks, and save them for future reference. Contact writers now to ask if you can use their quotes and/or images in future promotion since they are currently excited about the event. You’re much more likely to get a response two weeks after the event when they just posted a recap blog than in 10 months when you are looking for material for your marketing campaign.

Have Attendees Fill Out A Survey

Offer your guests the opportunity to fill out a survey and be sure to include a way for them to opt-in to emails in case they haven’t already. Also, give them a place to write their thoughts so that you can collect them for future testimonials. At the end of each survey, provide a check box asking if you can share their comments in your promotions. Then, if they check it, ask them to provide social media handles so you can tag them for increased visibility.

Send Out Helpful Content Throughout The Year

The best events are relevant all year long – not because they spam inboxes constantly, but because they are genuinely seeking to improve their audience’s lives. Keep in touch with attendees by providing educational content throughout the year. These communications don’t have to be constant, 3-5 times between events should be plenty. You just want to make sure you are staying relevant, proving value, and increasing authority all year long.