Here’s a lowdown on how you can weave social media into the event’s fabric, so that the event buzz remains long after the credits have rolled

Events, no matter how big or small, are inherently social by design, aren’t they? So it stands to reason that using social media for your events would be a no-brainer, right? Yet, events all over the world — even those focused on social media — fail to leverage social platforms effectively throughout the event lifecycle. If you’re involved with planning an event, whether it is a global conference or a small networking mixer, here are some ways you can weave social into the event’s fabric, so that the event buzz remains long after the last cheques are cleared and the celebratory post-event dinners are over.

Before the event

Pick the Right NetwoRk: Before you even start planning for your next event, you’ll want to pick the right social networks (or combinations thereof) to get the word out about your event and connect with prospective attendees. Facebook clearly has the most to offer for event planners — most of your attendees will be on it and will have some experience interacting with your brand pages. Plus, it gives the ability to host all sorts of content about your event — whether it is photos, videos, surveys or a dedicated event webpage.

Twitter, on the other hand, is central to the actual event experience, through its use of event “hashtags” (keywords or topics on Twitter) to generate conversations around an event. LinkedIn, with its focus on professional initiatives, is also particularly useful if you’re focused on industry events, such as skill-training seminars, networking sessions or conferences; tapping into LinkedIn groups allows you to connect with key influencers and likely attendees.

choose youR eveNt hashtag: The hashtag is a vital element to your event marketing — information, social media conversations, promotions and campaigns around your event will be tracked via this hashtag. Ensure that the hashtag is unique, in that it hasn’t been used previously, and is easy to remember, can’t be misinterpreted or misread. Most crucially, keep it short — you wouldn’t want people running out of their 140 characters on twitter if #yourhashtagissimplytoolong, right? Once you settle on your event hashtag, include it in all conversations around the event, whether it is posters, flyers, invitations/ tickets, blog posts or traditional advertisements.

highlight youR assets: If you’re organising a conference and have confirmed your key speakers, promote their presence at your event by including their social accounts (Facebook, Twitter) in communications announcing your event, and a subtle call to action to register for your event. This has two benefits — it allows you to highlight your speakers and their relevance to the event, and gives your key guests a ready-to-share post or tweet that they can broadcast to their social followers, improving visibility and attendance at the event.

In addition, if you’ve already organised this event in the previous years, consider getting visual speaker and attendee testimonials recorded and socialise via your Facebook and YouTube channels. A behind-the-scenes highlights reel leading up to the event works well, too.

adveRtise socially: Targeted Facebook advertisements are a great way to reach your target audience, and are usually well worth the relatively minimal investment. Targeted ads let you pick a geographic or demographic segment to target to boost visibility and attendee signups. Facebook even lets you show ads to people who have visited your site without purchasing a ticket.

affiliates aNd social giveaways: If you need to boost ticket sales, consider putting an affiliate/ referral programme in place. How it works is that affiliates popularise your event on their social channels and drive ticket sales, and are granted a free pass to the event in return. Ensure that you empower your affiliates with shareable media snippets — it could be an audio or video clip, a blog post or an infographic, not to forget regular event updates. Social giveaways are another option — you could organise a mini contest on your Twitter or Facebook channels to popularise your event’s key themes and selected entries could be awarded free passes to attend your event.

During the event

MoNitoR aNd eNgage: It’s easy to do the groundwork and forget social media on the day of the event, especially when last-minute issues crop up and ensuring the event flows smoothly is the utmost priority. Plan ahead, and dedicate at least a couple of folks to monitor your social feeds while the event is on. Just about any capable social monitoring tool can track event keywords and hashtags, and your social team should be at hand addressing questions and complaints that are coming up about the event (such as: is there a live video stream, why is the WiFi so slow and so on) and share snippets from the events in the form of quotes, photos and short videos from the event on your social channels.

oN-site PRoMotioNs: Set up a projector to display all the tweets and posts happening in real-time during your event, so that attendees can be encouraged to participate in the conversation. You could even gamify the activity, and award hourly prizes to the most creative tweets and Facebook posts shared by attendees (again, tracked using the hashtag).

PRoMote youR atteNdees: Have your team walk around the venue, and share interesting photos of attendees in your event updates. Identify the people in the photo and be sure to tag them if you can — this allows and encourages people to comment about how much they’ve learnt at the event and the key takeaways from the event.

After the event

Retell the stoRy: If you’ve spent enough time on the event floor capturing attendee feedback and conversations, you can retell the story of the event. Not in your own words, but in the words of your attendees — via their video snippets, tweets/ posts and photos shared. You’re not only summarising the event for those who couldn’t make it to the event, but creating a call-to-action about how they should attend the next time around.

seek atteNdee feedback: If your event registration captures attendees’ social details, reach out to them via a quick post-event survey. You can even boost participation by organising a lucky draw among those who complete the survey, with the incentive of free attendance to the next event you organise.