Social media is a universe of its own today. With almost every individual having a virtual presence in the digital format, social media has rightfully emerged as a largest global marketplace for marketers, employers, event organizers and perspective consumers. Therefore the need to carefully integrate social media to raise awareness, organize and conclude an event has emerged as the need of the hour.



This time at EE, we share some interesting tips and tricks that one can use to creatively use social media to make your event a bigger and grander success.



1-      Create a Hashtag for your event- Through the use of #hastags on the major social media platforms such as facebook, twitter and instagram one can easily see all the latest information pertaining to the trending topic at one place. Creating a unique hashtag for your event is an integral step to raise awareness about it and help people track the last buzz surrounding it. Not only is the process to create hashtags free but goes a long way to help your event establishing a distinctive identity on all platforms of social media.







Previously Expedia voraciously used this process to launch its #VacationOnMyMind campaign. The hastag helped in generating a massive interest, engagement and traffic on Expedia Twitter page as the hashtag received maximum reach and was tweeted 2,648 times during and after the contest. It witnessed participation from over 770 authors and generated 55,681 impressions organically in a span of 20 days reaching out to 1,496,849 Twitter profiles in the duration.



2-      Youtube Video Creation- Help people get an insight about your event through a brief video on youtube that focuses on the highlights of the event and provides its viewers a few key details such as the location, entry fees, contests and other requirements. The video can be easily shared among the target audiences and a good one is a guaranteed formula to increase the attendance at the event.



3-      Use Linkedin for personalized invitations- Linked in is an online community for professionals who exist in a network and can also be connected to accordingly. Use it to invite the reputed professionals of the industry to your event and also start up conversation topics to get in better ideas for execution of the event.



 



4-      Organize contests and update to sustain buzz- It’s very easy to create a buzz on social media but it is increasingly difficult to sustain it. Update your social media profile consistently and continuously through news updates, customer engaging strategies such as online competitions, sharing pictures about your event and the USP.



5-      Live Streaming- The most effective way to add a significant virtual presence to your events is by live streaming your event on the social media platforms so that everyone can view the event and be a participant even without being physically present. Such social media strategy is a win-win situation for the organizers as they get to interact with the audience on a global platform. Canvas Talent & Oxigen Wallet followed a similar strategy when they organized stroke of midnight concert by Farhan Akhtar which allowed their users to enjoy live streaming of Farhan Akhtar concert on Independence Day for Rs.1. The concert became historic with 800,000 fans watching the performance making it the biggest concert in the country







6-      Make video tutorials with enthusiastic attendees- As your event is being executed do not stop with the social media buzz. Make online video tutorials with attendees to add a real life enthusiasm among even those who could not attend it. Ask people to post comments and feedbacks on videos and keep sharing them to allow people to track live updates.



7-      Social wall concept- An effective mechanism to creatively engage your attendees in your event is having a social media wall at your event, wherein the reactions of people who make new posts about their experience, interaction, feelings about the event can be viewed. A successful example of this was The Maybelline SuperStay campaign involved a giant replica of the Times Square in New York with a 14 hr clock at the Phoenix Mall in which saw more than 25,000 women and got 1,000 women to participate by tweeting on the spot.







8-      Create blogs for after event update- Keep the buzz of your event alive even after it has been successfully executed by blogging about it. This step allows the attendees to stay in touch with you even after the event and post necessary suggestions as to how can you better the experience for them next time.