Social media is the go-to marketing resource for businesses these days. From small companies to corporate giants, every business entity relies on the power of social media to accomplish its marketing goals. Although it took some time for businesses to truly embrace the core purpose of social media platforms, they are fully aware of the promotional capabilities of popular sites nowadays. If you have corporate events like brand activations, team-building events, product launches, and company conferences planned in the coming months and want to use social media to reach potential attendees, you have arrived at the right place. We will uncover the power of social media event promotion by diving deep into the tactics and tips for each platform.
This article will cover the essentials of crafting compelling content to engage with targeted audiences on popular social sites. We will discuss the potential strategies you can use for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to expand your corporate event attendance.
The Mega Power of Social Media in Event Promotion
Social media plays a BIG role in significantly expanding your reach. It helps you connect with people who can effectively relate, collaborate, and contribute to your business goals. While most users rely on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to make new friends, these sites can expand your outreach to unimaginable levels.
Knowing the mega power of social media event promotion is crucial for someone planning corporate events for their organization. Before we dive into the details of how you can strategize Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to grow the number of your event’s attendees, let’s quickly grasp the promotional role of these platforms.
Increased Visibility
The biggest factor that blends social media platforms with corporate businesses is increased visibility. Corporate organizations frequently organize large-scale events like product launches, brand activations, and professional conferences. The biggest challenge event organizers face is building a community of relevant attendees in a limited time.
This is where social media platforms jump into the equation. They allow organizers to run ad campaigns targeted at specific audiences (based on their demographics, preferences, and activities). With narrow targeting techniques, organizers can get as many people as they need to sign up for the event. Moreover, your event information can organically spread on these platforms when people like, comment, and share your posts.
Ad Creation Tools
Ad creation tools offered by social media platforms make it super easy for event organizers to design their preferred promotional materials. Moreover, ad management suites can help you determine the best tactics for creating posts with CTAs. You can use creative videos, static images, and reels to generate compelling materials for your targeted attendees.
Adding a CTA in your ad posts can help you generate maximum responses from your potential community. Plus, you can generate messages to each user for sharing invites in a single-click operation.
Real-Time Insights
Social media sites are designed for real-time updates. Whether you use them for building your community or running paid promotions, these applications can update you in real time about your promotions and their responses. If you feel that your campaigns are not paying back the expected results, you can make modifications to ad sets based on your needs.
The real-time updates work two ways. You can also send event schedule updates and guest information to your attendees whenever you like. Such tools come in handy when you have ongoing changes in your organized corporate event.
Engagement and Interaction
Unlike pamphlets and posters, social media promotions enable you to engage and authentically interact with your targeted audiences. For instance, if you have a brand activation event planned in the coming month, you can create polls and ask questions from your attendees regarding their concerns. This way, you can resolve problems and disputes as they arise to ensure a well-organized event.
Promptly responding to comments and questions can help you develop a sense of a loyal community that can pay off in your future events.
Hype Building
An important part of corporate event planning and management is to build hype and excitement among the attendees before the event. There is no tool better than social media platforms for accomplishing this objective. You can create and schedule countdown posts in the week before the event to remind your attendees about the date. Such posts can also help you in resolving last-minute attendance issues for a smooth event plan.
Building hype keeps your audiences engaged and motivated about the event. It is a tested and proven technique for ensuring maximum attendance at corporate events.
Building an Effective Event Promotion Strategy With Social Media Platforms
Analyzing the above factors may help you understand the power of social media in promoting corporate events. Now, an important question you may have is how to build an effective event promotion strategy for popular social media channels.
To help you get the best results in terms of audience expansion and outreach, we have covered effective techniques for each platform below. Let’s get started.
Event Promotion With Facebook
Facebook has been one of the most popular social media sites for over a decade. Nearly 3 million businesses actively advertise on Facebook today. This figure alone speaks about the platform’s promotional potential. To help you build an effective event promotion strategy for Facebook, we have covered some crucial tips and tactics below.
Post Informative Content
Establishing your Facebook presence and running paid promotions is not all. You must have substantial information to engage and intrigue your audiences. Here are a few qualities of informative content.
- It compels your audiences to take (some kind of) action
- It excites your targeted audiences
- It motivates your followers to click on the CTA
A good rule to employ these practices in your Facebook posts in the best way is to put yourself in your audience’s place. Analyze what you would want to know from a corporate event planner to share with you regarding the event.
Use Must-Share Infographics
Have you ever seen a Facebook post and could not resist sharing it with your friends? This is the goal you must target when aiming for social media event promotion. Using compelling visuals in your Facebook posts can help you expand your target viewership quickly. A lot of businesses fail to build user engagement due to mainstream visuals. Here is what you should aim for when deciding on your event promotion visuals.
- Consider real images and videos (of the event’s venue, preparations, and PR materials)
- Avoid using animated visuals as they fail to reflect the potential of your corporate event
- Use creative effects in your videos to reflect professionalism
Keeping these elements in check can help you create must-share infographics about your corporate event. Seeking help from professional event planners can benefit you in this regard. They are well aware of the visual tactics for attracting more attendees.
Create Event Briefs and Share Links on Facebook
Relying on attractive social media posts to expand your event’s outreach is great. However, adding links to event briefs and relevant blog posts can enhance your event’s value. Remember, your loyal attendees would be highly interested in reviewing the event’s details before it arrives. Adding links to such publications can help you increase engagement on your Facebook page.
Event briefs and blog posts can also benefit you in terms of organic reach. You can target an even bigger audience for your corporate event than anticipated in the first place.
Event Promotion With Instagram
Instagram is a highly effective promotional tool. Many consumer brands and corporate businesses rely on this platform to grow their community and customer interactions. If your goal is to increase the number of attendees in your upcoming corporate event, Instagram can help you achieve this goal well. Here, we have covered the most effective strategies you should try to achieve your goal.
Optimize Your Profile
Profile optimization is the most crucial step when aiming for Instagram promotions. It is the first thing your audience may notice when they arrive at your profile. Despite your event’s potential, your target group may not hit the CTA if your profile does not look compelling. Here is what you need to do for profile optimization.
- Choose a clear and memorable profile picture
- Add event details in your profile’s highlights
- Use an attractive layout for Instagram posts
These factors collectively contribute to your profile’s appeal on the platform.
Use Trending Hashtags
Corporate events are typically popular in different communities. If the audience is unfamiliar with the event itself, they recognize the company name. Use relevant and trending hashtags on your posts to grow your organic reach. Your audiences may search for your corporate event using hashtag search features.
A good way to determine how to use hashtags is by doing competitive research. See how other companies use hashtags in their posts to grow their post’s reach.
Focus on Industry-Specific Influencers
Influencer marketing is a popular technique most companies use these days to expand their outreach on Instagram. Reach out to influencers relevant to your industry and ask them to promote your upcoming event. They typically have a huge followership that contributes to your audience expansion.
When searching for influencers, make sure that they have an active followership (relevant to your industry). Seeking help from an expert event planning agency can be fruitful in this regard.
Event Promotion With LinkedIn
LinkedIn is your professional social media platform for growing your B2C and B2B outreach. It is a hub of corporate professionals and their followers who engage in business-oriented discussions and relations. When planning social media event promotion for your corporate event, LinkedIn can be highly effective. Here are the top strategies you can rely on for expanding the number of attendees at your event.
Connect With Industry Leaders
Corporate businesses typically have a massive followership on LinkedIn. When aiming for an effective marketing strategy, you must connect with industry-specific leaders and influencers. They can help you spread the word in their communities to increase engagement on your company page. When connecting with industry professionals, keep the following tips in mind.
- Always write a personalized message highlighting the intent of building a connection (for instance, expanding your community for an upcoming corporate event)
- Introduce yourself well (by highlighting your roles and achievements within your organization)
- Maintain communication with your connections to stay relevant
Start Discussions and Respond to Feedback
To grow your event’s outreach, start relevant discussions on your company page. This helps in engaging your followers and hearing from them in the comments section. For instance, you may start a discussion about the purpose of your event. Your potential attendees may respond to it and state their questions. Here is what you should do to increase engagement on your LinkedIn posts.
- Be active on your LinkedIn page
- Respond to comments individually
- Offer solutions to attendees regarding their concerns and problems
Run Paid Promotions
Paid promotions can be super effective on LinkedIn when you have market recognition. Use your company’s page to run paid promotions about upcoming corporate events. Always use a CTA in your posts to ensure engagement. You can use the posts to invite attendees, engage sponsors, and build new communities (for a new product launch).
Remember, LinkedIn ads can be relatively costly as compared to other social channels, including Facebook and Instagram. However, they can be effective in terms of maximizing your event’s attendance.
FAQs About Social Media for Event Success
How can social media boost events?
Use social media channels to connect with event guests, influencers, and supporters. Post engaging content to build hype. Create hashtags to encourage guest promotion. And leverage paid ads to get your event in front of your target audience where they “hang out” most – online.
What are the best social media platforms for event marketing?
Based on analytics from 2023, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter,) and LinkedIn are the most effective social platforms for promoting events.
When and how often should I promote my NY event on social media?
Ideally, you’ll want to start social media promotions about your event two months in advance. And it’s best to maintain a posting frequency of two to five posts each week.
The Takeaway About Social Media and Events
Leveraging social media for corporate event promotions can be fruitful on many levels. As an event organizer, you can leverage social media sites to accomplish various objectives effectively. Social media event promotion tactics can help you build new communities for brand activation and product launches. They can also help you spread the word about your upcoming corporate conferences.
By following the strategies highlighted above for each social media platform (Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn), you can establish a captivating digital campaign for your organization. These tactics can also help you promote your company’s products and services.
Do you want to organize a corporate event that becomes the highlight of the year? EMRG Media can help you accomplish this goal. As the leading event planning and marketing agency in New York, we can take your event planning worries away. Get in touch with us to plan an extraordinary corporate event!
