Leveraging Social Media for Improved Event Awareness

From ideation to conception and implementation, pulling off a successful media event, corporate event or brand activation is a stressful experience. When it comes to raising awareness, cultivating interest and generating hype for your event, social media marketing is arguably the most effective marketing channel for driving engagement at scale.

Want to know the best part about leveraging social media channels for event awareness? Creative thinking and strategic decision making can supplement a limited budget.

That means, the more engaging and creative that companies are with their social media strategy, the more likely it is that their brand activation or event will be noticed by the masses and receive organic attention. The more attention, social media shares and word-of-mouth promotion that your event receives, the less marketing spend is required to attract attention and attendees.

When it comes to social media marketing for event awareness, knowing what to post and when to post it is critical to success. Maximizing your social media event marketing efforts requires strategy and forward planning. Here are five simple tips that can be used to leverage social media for event awareness.

Step 1: Define Your Social Networks

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. There is no shortage of social media networks that can be used to promote your event. Choosing where to spread your message will depend largely on your industry and your target audience — not all social media networks are equal. According to Event Management Melbourne group Polite Promotions, it’s important to identify your target demographic when deciding where your social media budget and effort will be directed. Here are some tips for choosing the best social media channels for your event:

Facebook – The largest and most used social media network, Facebook is a popular choice for sharing and promoting event information. Facebook allows users to create an event, share updates and create targeted marketing campaigns based on demographics and user interests.

Instagram – The fastest growing social media platform, Instagram is an effective channel for scaling event awareness.

Twitter — One of the most efficient channels for building excitement and providing concise updates to event progress. Use posts and event-specific hashtags to generate excitement and awareness before your event.

LinkedIn — Effective for B2B event promotion, corporate events, and educational event awareness. LinkedIn is a good choice for industry-focussed event promotion.

Step 2: Update Your Social Media Pages

Before you start pushing your message out on social media, it’s important that your social media accounts are up-to-date and include relevant company details, accurate descriptions and feature a calendar of upcoming events. Here are some simple ways to update and optimize your social media profiles ahead of your event:

• Update your banner image and profile images to reflect the upcoming event. It’s important to be consistent with the look and feel across various social media platforms.

• Have a copywriter look over the copy in your ‘about us’ and ‘company information’ sections. If you haven’t updated your company descriptions in a while, now is the time to work with a copywriter who can refine the copy.

• Link your social media profiles. Make it easy for visitors to travel from one social media platform to another by providing links to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles.

Step 3: Make it Official with Facebook Events

Irrespective of your preferred social media channel, Facebook Events is far and away from the most effective way to promote your event and target your advertising towards specific user groups. As of 2019, Facebook Events generates more than 500-million users each month and is responsible for promoting more than 47-million events around the globe. Here is what you need to remember when creating a Facebook Event:

• Use your event cover photo for your event advertising campaign. 1920×1080 is a universal size that can be scaled up and down according to user device preference.

• Be specific with your event location, time, and category in order to create the most effective targeted advertising campaign with Facebook’s algorithm.

• Create a CTA that encourages click-through and engages your prospective audience. Put some effort into creating a headline that will stand-out to users.

• Make it easy for users to access tickets (where applicable). Provide links to ticketing outlets where users can purchase or reserve tickets for the event.

According to the latest research from Facebook, event pages that sell tickets directly from their Facebook Event page generate twice the number of sales and event registrations than those that do not.  

Step 4: Run Social Media Advertising

Irrespective of how attractive and eye-catching your Facebook Event is, the truth of the matter is that less than 5% of your Facebook followers will see posts that you make on your Facebook Event page. The Facebook algorithm is designed to encourage paid advertising spend – in order to reach your desired audience and create some noise, you’re going to need to pay for the privilege. Here are some tips for creating an effective Facebook Event advertisement:

• Keep it short and concise
• Create an engaging video or image to accompany the ad
• Engaging, eye-catching headlines are your greatest asset
• Have a clear call-to-action

Step 5: Measure and Adjust

Want to know the secret to leveraging social media for event success? Use the data that you accrue in the months and weeks leading up to your event to refine your social media marketing tactics. As the event draws closer, you’ll be able to use the information that you have gathered to understand what is resonating with your audience and tweak your strategy accordingly. Some of the metrics that you should be looking at include:

• Clicks
• Impressions
• Engagement Rate
• Ticket Sales/Event Sign-ups
• Return on Investment
• Cost Per Acquisition

Conclusion Organising, planning and pulling off a successful event is no small feat. Social media is an effective way to create strategic social media marketing and promotional campaigns that can be tailored to your desired demographic. Social media is a highly effective way to generate event awareness and create targeted advertising campaigns that will resonate with your target audience.