All aboard the hype train
Post-event social media hype is crucial the event promotion of previous and future events.
Regardless of the size of your event, your job isn’t done when the last guest leaves. When building post-event social media hype, there’s plenty of work to follow up with guests, meet your goals, and increase your return on investment.
Social media is the perfect tool for building hype around any event. Building this hype goes so much further than creating a Facebook event. With more social media platforms than we can count, there are many options to get creative and get people excited about your event.
But what about when your event ends? Where do you go from there? Let’s explore how you can build post-event social media hype.
Nurture the community you built during your event
We’re willing to bet you didn’t spend all of that time and energy planning and executing an event simply out of the kindness of your heart. For guests, an event is an incredible networking tool, learning opportunity, and social experience. For the event organisers, it’s all those things and a chance to collect leads and build your community.
Don’t underestimate your event’s power in growing your social media following and building a more robust mailing list. During your event, make sure you’re making it as easy as possible for people to join your mailing list, follow you on social media, and visit your website. The resurgence of QR codes has made this more accessible than ever, so there’s no excuse not to do it.
Use a post-event survey to guide your social media strategy
A post-event survey isn’t just great for event promotion and improving your next event. It’s also an excellent way to tailor your social media strategy in the wake of your event.
Ideally, you should send your post-event survey the day after your event concludes, ensuring it’s still fresh in the minds of your guests. Whether it’s the food, presenters, workshops or more, by honing in on what people did and didn’t like, you’ll be able to create far more engaging social media content.
If there was an element of your event that people didn’t like, why would you post about it on social media?
Post-event hype starts before your event
It is wise to start event promotion well before it happens to grow interest and encourage people to join. Social media can help you do this. But a mistake many businesses make is neglecting to plan their event’s social media event promotion.
Don’t go blindly; develop a strategy for your social marketing and event promotion. Plan when you are going to post. First, decide which social platforms will be most important for sharing your messages. Second, research where your target audience hangs out.
If they’re Twitter junkies rather than Facebook fanatics, then start busting out those 140-character tweets.
Content can include behind-the-scenes photos, sneak peeks of the guest lineup, information about ticket sales and registering for the event.
In the lead-up to your event, showcase previous events you’ve hosted. Build hype with videos and photos of past guests and share testimonials and links to reviews.
Custom hashtags are fantastic for event promotion. The hashtag should be short and easy to spell. It should also be unique and memorable. Your offline marketing should also include this hashtag and promote joining social media pages, and don’t forget to encourage guests to use the hashtag in their posts.
Retargeting is another effective way of bringing awareness to the event. The best method is to target the people who have come to your website but haven’t converted.
People don’t like to miss out, so build as much hype around your event as possible and encourage them to purchase tickets early to receive discounts and secure the best seats.
Continue the FOMO
FOMO doesn’t end when your event does. When your event ends, it’s time more event promotion. It’s time to share, share, and share some more.
If people weren’t regretting missing this year’s event, they will soon. You will have a surplus of content, from memes, infographics, blogs, and videos to testimonials and quotes. Don’t let your memory fade away. Share that content!
Post-event
Invite people to share their experiences on social pages. This is an excellent opportunity for event promotion and to get feedback on the event. You might get some criticism, but don’t be put off by negative comments. Negative feedback offers a chance to explain, learn about attendees’ expectations, and make things right.
For more significant scale events, you might even like to approach the media that have attended for an article covering the event. Inviting journalists and other relevant media persons to the event could be added as part of your pre-event strategy. Reaching out and asking them to attend will make it easier to ask them for press coverage after.
Reflect on the fantastic event you pulled off with highlights—photos and videos of guests and speakers, and repost some of the most popular content shared by others. Tell a story, boast a little and make people want to join you next time.
Remember to keep track of what works and record it so you can refer to your notes when you develop your strategy for the next event you host!
