Social networks provide convenient ways to promote not only physical goods and services but also entire events of both an entertaining and educational nature. In some cases, you can limit yourself to just one channel, for example, if the potential audience actively uses the social network. Let's consider the main tools that allow you to promote events on social networks.
Working with the target audience
As with any promotion, when talking about social networks, it is important to determine who is included in the target audience (age, gender, interests, occupation, etc.) and what are the characteristics of people's behavior. This will give an understanding of what methods of influence should be used.
For example, when promoting an entertainment event "Party" in the format of a night music event, you can see that the target audience is a dense core consisting of young people in the average age range of 20-30 years, living in the city of the event. They hang out in several thematic communities, usually in one or two, the use of which will cover up to 90% of potential visitors. It becomes clear that the main efforts should be directed to work with these publics and the blogs associated with them.
Article on the topic: how to determine the target audience
For an event of a cognitive nature - lectures, seminars, and similar events - studying the target audience can give an understanding that they are loose and diffuse in their structure. Public in this case can also be used, but for greater coverage, it will not be possible to do without targeted advertising.
Thus, studying the target audience is the basis for further promotion with minimal cost for it.
Creating "events"
Regardless of how the promotion will take place, it is necessary to create a separate Events page, where interested users will come and where up-to-date information about the upcoming event will be posted.
Facebook is very convenient for this purpose. The event is created in one window, and the social network makes it possible to create both a page open to everyone and a closed event, designed for a certain circle of people, as well as their friends.
The event topic — a line of up to 48 characters — should reflect the essence of the event and at the same time "catch" users. In some cases (usually entertainment events), the marketing component when writing a title can be completely neglected: you just need to clearly reflect the purpose or content of the event.
The description of the event is not limited to characters, but it should not be made too long. Usually, the description contains a list of benefits that a person who attended the event can receive.
Time and venue, links to the organizer's website or to the ticket purchase service must be filled in.
Promotion
After studying the target audience and creating a landing page for the event on the social network, you can proceed directly to promotion.
It is interesting to read: how to write a good ad for Facebook
Event blogging
Promotion of an event on a social network is usually a long process. The sooner it is launched, the better. The fact is that by promoting a separate event, we lay the foundation for subsequent events and make the audience hot. And for this, you need to work every day for 2-4 weeks, maybe even longer.
What you need to do:
- Publish 2-3 posts every day (no more is needed, so as not to bore you);
- Generate photo and video material related to the event: information about participants, about the issues involved, about previous events of a similar plan;
- Publish photos illustrating the progress of preparations for the event - this allows you to maintain and increase the public's interest in the upcoming event;
- Closer to the date of the event, you need to publish a diagram of the event - the location of important places, this allows users to imagine "how it will be" and dream a little, which again is not bad from the point of view of warming up the audience.
Announcing the event in the public
Announcements are made in all public, where target users hang out. It is easy and in most cases free. It is advisable to time announcements to interesting posts on the event page and do this with a frequency of 1-2 times a week.
Free ticket giveaway
An effective method of promotion for many events. Firstly, it creates additional excitement. Secondly, the condition for the giveaway is a post about the event on the participant's personal blog, which increases the awareness of the event (and the brand) and promotes promotion among the participants' friends.
Invitation of friends
This method is not the most effective: the conversion will be no more than 5%, that is, no more than 50 people from 1000 friends. However, this free tool should not be neglected.
Placement of ads on billboard resources
Advertising on city-wide resources is an effective way to promote an event, allowing you to reach an audience that does not use the main public on the topic.
Posts on opinion leaders' blogs
Unlike an announcement in public, opinion leaders will ask for remuneration for their posts. The return from this leverage (in combination with other channels) is quite tangible. Most people are extroverts, and their peculiarity is to focus on "leaders" and do the same as leaders, who are essentially role models.
Support feedback
A very important aspect of interaction with the audience is the reaction to their actions. It can be a like or a full comment - it doesn't matter, but the latter is better.
You don't need to delete negative or unformatted (caustic or satirical, strange in content, etc.) comments.
Any reaction from real people, even negative ones, is valuable. The goal in this case is to maintain a proper dialogue and respond adequately. It should be remembered that 80% of social media users do not comment verbally, but read other people's comments, forming their own opinion - this is the object of the work.
Targeted Advertising
The targeted advertising tool on Facebook is very effective, but it requires an additional couple of hundred dollars and is not always appropriate. In each specific case, you should analyze and decide on the need to use this method of influence.
Postmarketing
In the context of promoting an event on a social network, postmarketing means the final work with a hot audience. Words of gratitude, an offer to express an opinion, share impressions about a past event are extremely important elements of interaction with the audience, which cement its core and allow you to save money on advertising campaigns for future events.
Conclusions
Promoting an event on a social network involves:
- Periodic informing users about the upcoming event.
- Active interaction with the audience, including those who are skeptical.
- Using Facebook tools such as inviting friends, and targeted advertising.
- Announcing events in public and blogs of opinion leaders, raffle of free tickets.
- Using paid advertising within the network and on external billboard resources.
