As social media becomes even more pervasive throughout our work and home lives, gone are the days when meetings and events professionals can rely only on traditional communications platforms such as email, paper and in-conference apps to raise awareness and engagement for our events and our brands. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and even some of the younger platforms such as Tik-Tok and Snapchat are natural destinations for attendees and prospective attendees looking to learn more about our events, decide whether to attend, engage with their networks while at our events, and seek out follow-up information after an event concludes.
At FICP’s recent annual meeting, Lincoln Financial Group’s Meg D’Angelo, Elena French and Kirk Wilson stressed the importance of factoring social media into an overall communications strategy, and had these pointers for breakout session attendees:
- Don’t be afraid of Social Media. Executed well as part of a broader event communication strategy, it can be our friend, helping to raise awareness, participation and engagement and helping to extend our voices deeper into critical stakeholder audiences.
- Start small. If you’re new at social media, don’t have a big budget or need to build a business case with leaders, there’s no better way than to start small, test and learn, share you results and improve your execution over time. Maybe at first you simply create a hashtag, encourage attendees to share content with their own networks over LinkedIn, and see how you do. As you gain comfort, you can build onto your approach and watch the impact grow.
- Think in terms of “before, “during” and “after.” Some platforms may be better suited for different purposes. If you’re trying to encourage attendance, a paid strategy to target via LinkedIn certain kinds of people (think employees, analysts, investors, regulators, etc.) who might be more likely to attend could be a great approach. During your event, sharing a hashtag and encouraging attendees to post to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter could be a good approach to grow awareness among your target audience and grow esteem for your brand. And after the event, you may go back to your corporate LinkedIn or Facebook accounts to tout thought-leadership content and grow excitement for your next event.
- Find your friends! Most organizations have dedicated marketing, communications and/or social media teams who are already riding the social wave. And if they’re anything like Kirk and Elena, they want to be your friend! You have content from your events that they may want and need, and they are a great resource to help you wade in slowly before diving into deeper social media waters.
The bottom line: social isn’t going away, and the role it plays in making our events successful grows daily. To remain effective in our roles and ensure we remain expert advocates in helping our business partners promote and celebrate their events, we need to become social savvy. By starting small, incorporating social into our broader communication strategy and finding friends around our organizations to help us, we can all benefit from the added value that social media can bring.