Events and business-related conferences and seminars are standard in all industries. Sometimes, they can be exclusively for your company staff, while sometimes you wish to invite more people to the event. 

If you want your event to be attended by a lot of new people, how do you build awareness and promote it to increase attendance? Social media is an excellent answer to this.   

In this blog, you will discover how you can use social media for attracting attention and visitors to your event!

Choose the social media platform which is ideal for your event promotion.

Firstly, you need to decide which social media platform is ideal to use for your event. After you understand this, you can tailor your tactics accordingly.

For example, if you’re running a large-scale event which is open to people from different fields, age groups, etc., then Facebook is the best option for spreading the word about it. Create your event on Facebook and use targeted advertising to promote it to your ideal audience. 

On the other hand, LinkedIn is best for specialised corporate events. With LinkedIn, you can set up the event, reach the professionals from your fields, invite them, and let attendees start networking with each other. Here are some tips for LinkedIn event promotions:

• Add a status update with a sign-up page link 
• Publish a precise post about your event & consider ‘sponsoring’ it
• Send direct messages to your target audience
• Create a group for the professionals or specific people whom you want to invite

Instagram is ideal for less-formal blogger events. It’s also a great platform to engage with fellow bloggers and vloggers. You can use it to post high-quality, beautiful images and videos about your event and generate buzz around your event by using hashtags and direct pitching.

Create popularity with a unique event hashtag.

Whichever social media platform you choose for reaching out to people, a unique hashtag can go a long way. It allows your attendees to contribute to the conversation which creates extra engagement. Innovate a hashtag which is short and memorable so that the viewers and attendees can recall it right away.

You should also check that your hashtag is not used before and does not overlap with your competitors.

Attract attention with high-quality pre-event content.

High-quality content is a must for your event promotion. It helps you engage audiences and offer them with resources to share with their followers. You can come up with content like blog posts, white-papers, case studies, testimonials from previous events, interviews with well-known personalities, etc. If you are hosting a less formal event, then sharing blog posts, pictures, videos and behind-the-scenes videos and posts might help a lot.

You can also attract interest in the event by making visual changes to your social media profiles. Create custom banners regarding your event and add them to the headers on your Facebook and Twitter pages. You can also add a ‘Sign up’ call to action button on Facebook for your event.

Encourage interested viewers and confirmed attendees to share the word.

You should encourage your colleagues and confirmed attendees to post about the event on their social media pages, before the event and also when the event is going on. Remind them about the event’s hashtag and encourage them to use it.

To generate buzz on the day of the event, you can post your event photos, live videos that have your hashtag. If you are hosting an informal event, then you can also create selfie corners and encourage the attendees to click lovely photos and post them with your hashtag!

Post quality post-event conversation and content on social media.  

After your event, you can use your social media accounts to create a lasting impression on your audience. Maintain a rapport with your attendees and thank them for showing up, ask for their feedback and suggestions for improvement.

If you had hosted a corporate event, share the quotes from influential speeches in the event, publish blog posts or whitepapers and share the videos of speeches and interactions!

Social media platforms are an excellent channel for promoting events, but you need to use them wisely. Before you start, make a clear plan outlining tactics and timetables. Remember that occasional updates and ad-hoc content will not help you. You need to be consistent and innovative for achieving better engagement, reach, and event sign-ups.

What do you think? Which of these tactics will work for promoting your events on social media? Do you have more that you would like to share? Share your thoughts in the comments below!