Not Properly Leveraging the IMPACT Potential of Social Media for Events
The greatest thing about social media is that it’s absolutely FREE. However, the worst thing about social media is also that it’s FREE. Being able to post anything about your event doesn’t mean that you should post everything. This issue is becoming progressively worse in both the personal and professional spheres. The worst transgressors are those people who post constantly post content, just to post.
Have you ever blocked any friends because of their annoying Facebook posts? e.g., Those posts about politics (regardless of which side they’re on). If so, you’re really going to understand the context here… Too much social media has become a SPAM fest, especially for events! For some events, it’s a contest of “How much random stuff can we post about our event in the shortest amount of time?” This will turn your prospective attendees off and make them ignore you. If you’re always posting subpar information, are people going to pay attention when you have something important to say? Probably not!
A few years ago, an event tweeted 3,000+ times to their 2,500 Twitter followers over six months. The net result of this campaign, according to Google Analytics, was a meager total of 32 visitors to their website! Let’s do some math, here. Say it takes 60 seconds to compose, spell-check, and post a tweet on Twitter. Using these numbers, the event organizer dedicated 50 hours of work to get 32 visitors to their website. This was not a good return on their investment! As my friend Roman suggested, “they were better off putting a sign in their front yard for six months. Because they would have generated more traffic for far less work.”
Your Profit Action
When it comes to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, please take this simple advice: post less, but with more impact!
To some, the above might seem counterintuitive. However, when you post less, it gives greater weight to each post, and people will be much more inclined to pay attention to your message. Also, as a quick side note … make sure anything you post to Facebook is boosted. If not, it’s almost impossible to cut through all the noise.
Social media offers a tremendous advertising opportunity. However, it must be carefully integrated into your marketing process. Your Tweets, Facebook likes, shares, etc. only count if you can quantify those activities into an increase in attendees or ticket sales. You need to put a tracking and marketing process in place to accomplish that. If you track all your advertising and marketing to a quantifiable result, you’ll be far ahead of your competition.
Here are additional articles on using social media to promote your event:
- Measuring Your Social Media Event Promotion Efforts
- How to Leverage Facebook and Your Event Marketing
- Beware of the "Social Media" Event SMACKDOWN!
- Social Media, Your Event Marketing, and "Insider Info" . . .
- Social Media Comments and Your Event
- The Downside of Promoting Your Event with Social Media
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