15 Ways to Bring Social Media to Events
Do you host events or informal gatherings?
Social media enables event attendees to connect in powerful ways. Social media can help promote events and empower attendees to share.
This article will reveal 15 ways you can infuse social media into your events.
Creating Pre-Event Buzz
#1: Registration Buzz
You don’t have to wait until the day of your event to create a buzz—it can start at the registration stage. Services such as Eventbrite let your attendees share the event with their networks as they register. 
Google+ Integration: This Week in Social Media
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
Google+ Page Badges Are Publicly Released: You can now add a Google+ badge to your website. See the sidebar of this site to see it in action. Adding these badges do impact search results.
Check out Social Media Examiner's Google+ badge in the sidebar on the right.
Social Influence: This Week in Social Media
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
Klout Comes to Facebook Pages: The social marketing platform Involver joins forces with the online influence measurement tool Klout to bring Klout to Facebook pages. This gives brands a new way to engage with their most influential fans, and to reward consumers based on their influence as measured by Klout.
Location-Based Services: Foursquare vs. Facebook Places
Ask any marketer about trends for 2011 and you’ll undoubtedly hear the phrase “location-based services.” However, among Foursquare, Facebook Places, SCVNGR, Gowalla and many others, marketers have a lot to choose from.
In this article we’ll cover the two major players—Foursquare and Facebook Places—and see how they stack up.
What are location-based services?
Location-based services allow users to connect with others based on their current locations. In most cases, people use their smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) to “check in” to businesses like restaurants, bars and stores they visit. These locations are then broadcasted to their online friends.
New Social Analytics: This Week In Social Media
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
Facebook Announces Real-Time Analytics for Social Plugins: This gives Facebook page admins “access to real-time analytics to optimize Like buttons across both your site and on Facebook.” It’s another little upgrade to help you get more out of your Facebook marketing.
"You can use this real-time data to test the impact of button placement on Like Button CTR or identify the Open Graph image that generates the highest Like Story CTR."
8 Social Media News Stories You May Have Missed
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
New Speak-to-Tweet Service: Twitter, Google and SayNow teamed up to deliver a new Speak2Tweet service in response to the events in Egypt. Does your business monitor current events unfolding for social media business opportunities?
Users call special numbers to record their message. This generates a tweet with a link to the SayNow.com website (recently acquired by Google), which hosts the recording of the original message.
How Social Media Drew 27,000 More People to the Races
In Southern California, the Del Mar Racetrack is the place to see and be seen. And now it’s the place to check into, tweet about and post via Facebook.
This Southern California institution, in business for 71 years, draws thousands every summer for horse racing, its cool bars and restaurants and a busy slate of concerts and festivals.
But like many entertainment industry venues, Del Mar attendance has dipped in recent years due to the ailing economy. But in 2010, the track added a new star to its marketing lineup – social media.
With virtually no other marketing changes, social media boosted attendance this past season by 4.2 percent.
“That’s an increase of 27,000 bodies,” said Craig Dado, senior vice president of marketing at Del Mar Racetrack. “In this economy, I’ve got to be honest, it was a little bit surprising.”
How to Gain Competitive Insight With Social Media
Are you looking for that competitive edge? Want to know what your peers are up to?
Using social media to research competitors can provide useful information for any business looking to create a smart strategy. Learning about your competitors’ activities can give you insight into what works and what doesn’t.
The beauty of social media is that there’s a ton of information about your competitors that is public. And not only is their strategy public, but the reaction to that strategy is public as well. Let’s take a look at some of the things you can learn about your competitors through different social networks, search engines and other outlets.
This Week’s Important Social Media News
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
Please take Social Media Examiner’s 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Survey (participants get a free copy of the final report)
What’s New This Week?
Foursquare Supports Brands Without Physical Locations: Up to now Foursquare was only for businesses with a physical location. With Foursquare for Business, “brands that are not tied to a specific physical location” can now use Foursquare’s Pages and Custom Badges in their social media marketing mix. Find out more about what this means to you here.
Washington Redskins Kick-Off Foursquare to Reward Loyal Fans
Washington Redskins fans are some of the most devoted when it comes to supporting their team, donning full Native American headdresses, painted faces and hog noses.
These loyal fans now have an arguably easier way of showing their support—and connecting with each other—through Foursquare.
In a pilot for the 2010 football season, the NFL team rolled out Foursquare as a way to reward fans for attending home games or rallies during out-of-town games.
The results beat expectations. By December, Redskins fans had logged more than 20,000 check-ins at the home stadium FedExField and tens of thousands more at venues across the D.C. metro area.
