The OpenWater Blog

5 Ways to Improve Your Use of Social Media Before Your Conference

Of all the work you do for your next abstracts conference, your efforts before the conference itself are most important. Specifically, it’s important that you are prepared for how to use social media to your best advantage to generate awareness and prestige for your program.

Luckily, there are simple steps you can take to prepare yourself for social media use at your next conference. Below, we share our top 5 favorites so you know where to get started.

1. Prepare Content to Publish Before the Conference

Many organizations mistakenly believe they must wait until their conference to gather real-time information to create posts. However, it helps supplement your content if you prepare posts to publish well before your event begins.

Creating graphics with speaker photos, your branding, and a shareable quote is one way to supplement content. You may even pre-create graphics and wait until the event to gather quotes to quickly insert into the graphics before sharing.

2. Create a Social Media Cheat Sheet

A social media cheat sheet may contain speaker Twitter handles and other quick-reference information – like hashtags – so you have everything you need to quickly and efficiently compile content for your conference.

The more prepared you are, the better the chances you have of creating meaningful content during the conference.

3. Stick to the Social Media Platforms You Know

Live streaming, periscope, and other social platforms and mediums are all great for abstracts conferences. However, if you’re planning on using this platform for the first time, you may be better off skipping it altogether.

One of the most pressing problems at any conference is that you’re under pressure to publish content quickly and efficiently. If you hazard an attempt at a platform you’re unfamiliar with, you’re much more likely to mess up and possibly eliminate content you would have otherwise had from the conference. Worse yet, you may publish content that is shaky or less-than-optimal quality, tarnishing brand prestige in the process.

4. Be Savvy With Different Platforms

While Facebook is a photo-heavy platform best used for updates with a long-term impact Twitter is best used for sharing quotes and short-term notifications. On the other hand, Instagram is best used for high-quality photos and photo contests. But, what does this all mean?

It means if you are to be successful with your use of social media, you must learn what belongs on each platform. Create a strategy and templates that will work for each. In turn, it will seem natural to publish content to each during your event. Most importantly, you can determine where your attendees spend most of their time and plan accordingly.

5. Make it Your Own

It’s all too simple to look to other organizations for inspiration. But, what does your specific audience want? And, more importantly, how can you provide more value and a better conference experience?

Customizing the content you share on social media is a simple way to distinguish your organization while exceeding attendee expectations. Most importantly, it will help you create a social media strategy you can use year after year for your conference.

What You Do Before Your Event Matters More Than Anything After

Creating a strategy, a pre-existing arsenal of posts, and templates for shareable, real-time content are some of the easiest ways to guarantee success at your next abstracts conference.

So, which strategies will you select?

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