A client had recently asked me to recap a conversation on how elements of a social media marketing campaign can come together to build a buzz around an event. There are a number of tools that can be used in concert to help build interest and sustain interest after an event. Many of these tips are widely used already, but I’ll give you my spin on how things can come together. If you try these and have particular success or see lessons to be learned, I’d be eager to hear about it. These technologies and their uses are always evolving!!
One theme that will run through all of these points is the concept of the event owner. That can be the venue or the group organizing the event – but in my opinion, the owner should be an entity, not an individual. Group involvement always makes an event seem more substantial.
There are some who say it’s falling from it’s pedestal, but Facebook still the king of social media – so it’s almost essential to create a presence and event notice here. The event owner should post the event on their page and invite as many or all of their followers. Then, everyone associated with the event should publicize it on their walls and timelines.
Twitter can be great for generating a buzz before and during an event. It shouldn’t be the same tweet every time, but as people are going about the business of getting ready – buying supplies, contracting with artists, etc – tweeting about it keeps it present and makes it searchable. Have the event owner launch the first tweet – and make up a hash-tag for it – but also include regional hash-tags like #yourtown and #yourregion. People who are involved should re-tweet that initial tweet once each over a period of time (not all at once, though that could be amusing). Then, when you tweet about the event on your own, @ reply the event owner and use as many hash-tags as your message & character limit will allow.
Tumblr is a great way to aggregate images and then tweet about them. If there are samples of things people might see at the event, have the owner post them (or re-blog them) to their Tumblr page – the tweet from Tumblr.
We’ve covered the creation of the event (Facebook) who’s involved (Facebook & Twitter), and what’s happening (Tumblr). How do we branch out further?
Flyers
Yes, old school paper. Put things up in store windows, on telephone poles (if you can), on apartment building bulletin boards. Have the flyers reflect the tone of the event and the kind of crowd you want to draw. In concert with these flyers through, you want to easily draw people into your virtual planning space, so here’s where we leverage…
Quick Response codes are starting to show up everywhere; in catalogs and magazine ads and in store windows, anywhere people might be passing with a smart phone. They’re easy to create too – I use the QuickMark app on the iPhone, but there are web apps as well. A QR code can contain a text message, contact information, calendar events – it’s a way to put your event directly into someone’s phone and schedule without them having to remember or write it down. QR codes are still new enough where people think it’s fun just to scan them. So why not let them scan your event?
All that Tumblr content? Share it here too!
Sure – people will check into your event on FourSquare, but how does that help ahead of time? Have the event creator generate a tip, or have the venue owner create a special and attach it to their FourSquare presence. Don’t forget to share your venue checkins on Twitter with your hash-tag.
This one is new to the virtual space. It allows an event owner to create and curate an event over time. Epilogger aggregates everything about an event and tracks it before, during, and after it’s happened. The great thing about this is you can use the buzz and success from a previous event to build an audience for the next one. I just heard about Epilogger this week – so it’s pretty new to me, but it seems like it can fit in this conversation.
I know there’s a lot here, and this was kind of a brain dump – but I hope you find at least some of it helpful. Above all – have fun!!