
5 Social Media Promotion Techniques for Your Next Event
Your abstracts conference is quickly approaching. You turn to your conference manager and other team members and ask: “What can we do to promote our conference in addition to publishing on Facebook and Twitter?”
This is a legitimate and important question to ask. After all, many executives limit themselves to Facebook and Twitter when, in reality, there is a wide range of other platforms you can turn to as well. In this article, we’ll discuss 5 additional social media promotion techniques you should know to build on your existing social media efforts.
1. Use YouTube
Although it’s often overlooked, YouTube is a social network. Most importantly, YouTube offers a purely video-based platform that other social networks don’t.
If you’re going to use YouTube, you may want to publish videos about:
- Last year’s abstracts conference;
- Speeches or short snippets from team members in preparation for the event; and
- Speaker overviews or features
There is no limit to what you can cover using YouTube. Simply consider what your attendees want most and deliver on that promise.
2. Use LinkedIn
Like YouTube, LinkedIn is another often-forgotten social network. If you want to expand your audience beyond those who already follow you (which you should to generate additional buzz and maximize registration), you can follow relevant groups in your industry.
By joining a group, spending a few weeks offering advice and engaging with individuals, and only then plugging your event, you can do so without seeming spammy or pushy, either.
3. Use a Mobile Event App
Mobile event apps are amongst the most important resources for your upcoming conference. The best part is that event apps may be used to remind attendees of your social presence and social sharing functions. This will encourage participation without seeming pushy or annoying in the process.
4. Get Sponsors Involved
Every entity at your conference has social media pages and followings of their own. And, when you get sponsors involved, you can branch into different audiences and generate buzz and greater attendance for your event.
Requesting your sponsors to promote your event on social media is a simple way to extend your reach. Remember, sponsors want your event to be as successful as possible. This means most won’t have a problem with this request.
5. Create Engaging Content
This technique has less to do with taking efforts in another direction or on different platforms and more to do with making the most of social media efforts you already have in place. For example, you should take time to create the highest quality event material possible.
After all, you can publish to Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other social networks we mentioned above and get no results if you aren’t publishing the right kind of content.
The best content is engaging, interactive, and relevant. For example, you may create a quiz or questionnaire for your event. Or, perhaps you have a photoshop booth and allow attendees to edit the picture as they wish. Regardless of what you choose, take your time to determine what is most engaging and what will make attendees most satisfied by the end of your conference.
Social Media Promotion is Simple With the Right Strategies
Every executive and conference manager knows social media is an integral part of any event. However, not every executive and manager understands how to make the most of social media and, specifically, how to promote on social media.
By using all or any of the five techniques above, you’ll be well on your way to a successful conference.