Covering an event
If you are participating or organizing an event or conference, you will undoubtedly want to share your experience through the available social networks.
The immediate response is to blog, tweet, and then post something about your event on Facebook. Though this does provide some immediate value for those who can’t or couldn’t attend, many organizations are missing the bigger picture when it comes to leveraging the social web and their events.
Covering a conference can be a job in itself, but if done correctly it will help build our audience and increase our presence. Your events should be seen as a resource of content to be used before, during, and after the date of the event.
Most organizations do well with the “during” and the “after”. However, many overlook the importance of building an audience and momentum prior to the upcoming event.
Not everyone knows about your event
Truth be told, networks are small and tend to gravitate towards being siloed. If you want to your event to be successful, you must start thinking outside of your immediate audience.Sending out an announcement or simply updating your available online and offline networks won’t do.
Here are some suggestions on how you can build awareness prior to your event:
1. Tell us what your event is all about
This may sound pretty obvious, but I am amazed how many organizations do nothing but simply announce the name, date, and time. That’s all. Nothing about what kind of event is taking place, who will be there, and why I might be interested in attending.
Take the effort to tell me about your event, and I will probably take the effort to find out more about it. This may lead me to thinking about attending, or sharing your event with others who may be interested.
2. Showcase your key players
Putting the spotlight on who will be at your event can be a great way to build word of mouth.
You picked your speakers for a reason. Here is the perfect chance to show me why. Highlight them in a blog post. Better yet, do a few leading up to the event. If they are accessible, get them on video. No camera? Try recording an interview via Skype. Have them guest post or promote your event on their channels.
The organizers of the events I attend do anything they can to get their keynotes and presenters to participate in their media outlets. You need to do the same.
Now, something to point out here. Don’t focus all your attention on your event. Have your speakers provide content that focuses on what they are passionate about as it relates to your event.
This will provide a value that stems away from just plain promotion.
3. Talk about the the hot topics
Certainly your event will be relevant to the interests and needs of your potential audience. However, is there an issue or subject that people can’t stop talking about that relates to your event? If so, take advantage of that.
Build content around these hot issues. This will draw attention from an audience that may not have been aware that there is an event focused on the very subjects they are passionate about.
Remember you goal is to not just get your immediate audience to attend. You want to get people outside of your network to register.
4. What we will be doing during the event
Again, a lot of people over look including this information when promoting their events.
Tell me what we will be doing at your event. Will I just be listening to speakers? Will I have the opportunity to ask interact? Will there be workshops where I can learn something? What about roundtables or Q/A?
Break down your event. Highlight the activities in a series of posts if possible. The idea here is to build your audience through informative and interesting content. Your event represents your organization and brand. You owe it to yourself to put a lot of effort into promoting it both on and offline.
Be creative. Think outside the box.
Next steps
I’ve organized and covered a lot of events including FutureMidwest, Social Media Club Detroit, SOBcon, Ungeeked, and soon BlogWorld and Tedx Detroit. I’ve learned some tricks and I want to see your events succeed. So, we will be putting together an E-book that you can use as a guide you can use.
In it we’ll cover
- Building appropriate content
- The power of video and voice
- Using the available tools
- Promoting offline
- Promotion during and after
- We’ll also dive deeper into building word of mouth leading up to your event
Stay tuned!
