7 quick wins to promote and create engagement on D-Day

As an event planner, we know you are extremely busy on the day of your event. It is not easy from handling glitches, managing a team, networking with attendees and surveilling and ensuring that everything is on time and well in place. We know that promoting the event and encouraging engagement fall under the enormous list of things you have to do during the day of your event.

Today, we have for you 7 quick wins that will increase engagement and promote your event on the big day.

You can’t always promote your event, as there are certain internal events that must stay secret, for example, internal seminars, board meetings, product kick-offs…. You need to decide whether promoting will add value or not.

If you decide that it will add value, here are some goals and reasons for promoting your event:

• Communicate about you being a strong actor on the market
  Establish credibility as an expert in your field
• Increase and engage your attendees
• Grow of your email marketing list
• Increase site traffic
• Reach the right audience and stakeholders
• Strengthen your overall brand image
  Promote the next events you could organize in the future

#Hashtaging #️⃣

An event hashtag enables the experience sharing on the social media, as it lets you:

• group the online conversations and media sent on social media for your event.
• play a large part in increasing the exposure of your event.
• create greater conversation as it encourages other users to join the event conversation, or even sparks their curiosity and pushes them to find out more.
• analyse the effectiveness of the social media channel you used.

Finding the perfect hashtag involves a bit of brainstorming and a bit of tech savviness 😉
It should be unique and significant to your event.

Here are some quick tips on choosing a hashtag:

• Have sit and brainstorm cool hashtags that you would like to use and then do a Twitter/Facebook/Instagram search on their popularity, we know hashtagify works well.
• The hashtags that come out with little to no posts are the ones you should go for as they will be exclusive to your event!
• It is important to ensure the hashtag is short and catchy, as it will urge attendees to use it. Be aware that Twitter has a character limit, so short hashtags are more encouraged.
• You should make sure you have analytics on the hashtag. Ensure there is a tracker on it, a good tool to use would be Keyhole.

Some great examples of event hashtags we have seen in the past are:

• #SABookFest – A hashtag used by the San Antonio Public Library for their book festival
• #WFCANADA – A hashtag used by the Women’s Forum for their Event in Canada.

Gaming & Challenging

Creating a challenge or a game on the big day with a prize at the end of the event will incentivize your attendees to take part and keep them engaged during the day.

Doing this will need you to get creative with the tools you have at your disposition. If you are using Eventdrive, you can use the Instaphoto feature. This is a feature in on the app that allows you to take pictures and post them on the event wall, then allows for other attendees to like and comment on them.

We have seen in earlier events an Instaphoto challenge was very successful. The manager had created two rewarded challenges : the most liked photo at the end of the day and the most engaged attendee. You can have a look at the case study here!

This kind of activity allows you to engage the attendees and keep on promoting the event internally and externally. These challenges could be conducted on social media or on the event app.

Here are some quick tips on creating a good challenge:

• Understand your target, are they millennials or an older audience? What social media outlet do they use? How do they express themselves (text or images)? This will allow you to know the type of challenge that they will like and be most likely to take part in.
• Ensure that, at the beginning of the day, the challenge is communicated and has been well explained.
• Give your attendees time to conduct the challenge and promote it during the day.

The challenges will need you to think about how to integrate it in your event and if it is right for the setting!

Live Event Vlogging

This is a major plus to your event promotion strategy as live videos especially on Facebook have a huge reach. Facebook Live videos are a great way to bring engagement and visibility to your event. According to stats, they are 3 times more viewed than regular videos.

The live videos allow you to create FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out. They enable people who weren’t:

• able to attend the event to see what they missed out on
• aware of the event to attend next year.

Live streaming in events is this years big trend. Do you remember our article on the top tips for your next live stream?

Some examples of great live streams are:

• Buzzfeed Watermelon live stream, this 45 minute video got 807,000 live views.
• Dunkin Doughnuts Test Kitchen stream, this video got 36,000 live views.

Photo ops

We live in a generation where pictures say it all! Why not integrate it in your event?

The photo booth allows attendees to have a souvenir and share it with friends, colleagues and potentially others interested in the next edition. This can bring interactivity and increase your social engagement statistics and reach.

There are many ways to integrate it in your event. Here are some ideas:

• A specialized photo booth with your attendees, with a background related to your event theme. Offer them to send the photos to their emails to grow your marketing email list.
• Have a GIF contest or even allow attendees to shoot a GIF and post it on social media.

If you are doing this for your event, make sure the:

• images are visible and in line with the goal it fulfills (create souvenirs, increase event reach, engage audience…)
• media posted links back to you: you can get them to post the picture on social media with the hashtag or tag the company/corporate holding the event.
• process is properly carried out
• booth is in a place where it is visible and where attendees can get access to it when they have time.

Snapping, tweeting, Instagramming….

Our world is extremely connected thanks to all the social media outlets that exist. We spend more than 5 hours a day on social media. So it’s only logical that your attendees will be posting away on all throughout the event. You need to join them and Tweet, Insta, Snap and Facebook! The more you post, the more you get your event out there.

We recommend adding in a Snapchat geofilter. This will allow you to create a personal touch on people’s posts. You can also integrate the hashtagging tip we mentioned above? You should make sure you have already defined the purpose and tone for each social media channel and remind attendees to share while mentioning the organiser and use the event hashtag!

Influencing

Influencer marketing has become huge! Why so? Well that’s easy, because it works. The word of mouth method is something people trust and has a long-term value. Having keynote speakers that are also involved in the event process brings a huge added value to the event. You see this often in music festivals: certain artists in the line-up are also listed as the event organizers.

Influencers at events increase credibility, increase the reach your event to your target, works to create brand awareness and add real value to you audience.

You can do something similar by inviting or collaborating with the influencers in the event planning, maybe by doing some posts on social media together to get the word out or even a mailing. When targeting very famous influencers, a personalized approach is advised.

Here are some tips when dealing with influencers:

• You need to take time finding them, they can differ from industry to industry. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, they are called KOL (Key Opinion Leaders) and can be professors or doctors.
• Don’t hesitate to approach them with an offer to collaborate and be part of the event.
• You should always have a back-up plan, just in case.
• Influencers necessitate relationship management. If they get along with you, they will work with you.

Recounting

Just because the event is over doesn’t mean that your promotion is over, as there will always be a next edition to come. 😉

It is always a nice touch having a blog post at the end that acts like a recap of the event or even a newsletter. This refreshes the attendees’ brains on the important topics and potentially reminds them of their promise to recontact you.

It is always a good idea to:

• Share speaker presentations and quote certain key figures they gave during their speech.
• Insert some images and social media posts that portray the experience lived.
• Add short quotes from the press.
• Share the pre-registration link to the next edition of the event potentially on the newsletter or even the blog post.

In conclusion

According to studies, a satisfied person will share their experience with 2-3 people. However, a dissatisfied person will share their dissatisfaction with 8-10 people. It shows you the importance of a great attendee experience, one that they enjoyed and will remember. This way, you gain from the positive benefits and it’s an event that you are proud to link your brand image to.

So there are our 7 quick wins for successfully promoting your event on the big day. We would love to hear about unique wins you put in place to promote yours! Hope these help you in your quest to change the way you create and live events!