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Do you have an upcoming event?
Want to get the word out about dates and ticket sales?
Promoting your event with social media lets you create awareness, visibility and community.
In this article you'll discover four ways to promote your event on social media.
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#1: Use Double-Side Referral Programs to Offer Discounts
Companies like Uber, Dropbox and Airbnb use double-sided referral programs that connect to social media, turning their customers into promoters. You can harness the power of similar social referral programs to sell tickets for your event.
To put this strategy to work, provide ticket buyers with a trackable link to share with their social media followers and email contacts.
Event attendees know who is most likely to buy a ticket within their network of contacts, and can target those people organically through social media or via a direct channel like email or text. If someone they shared the link with ends up buying a ticket, both parties will receive a small discount.
Double-sided referral programs are one of the best ways to incentivize attendees to promote your event, and in doing so, attendees will be expanding your event's social media reach as well.
There are a few platforms that can make it easy to implement a double-sided referral program. For example, Genius Referrals is a great tool for constructing such a program. Bizzabo also offers a social media referral system tool called Ticket Boost that is specifically designed to help event organizers sell more tickets via a double-sided referral system.
#2: Create Community on LinkedIn
Create an industry-specific community for your event on LinkedIn. Not only does a community provide valuable insights for you, but it can also be a value-added resource for event attendees.
LinkedIn is a great platform for creating powerful networking groups, since attendees likely already use the social network to expand business connections and learn work-related best practices.
LinkedIn groups can also help you sell tickets. Consider making the group public and invite past event attendees along with qualified prospects to join your new group. By doing this, you can turn past event attendees into a marketing asset. They can discuss their experiences at previous events and help convert potential ticket buyers.
To further promote an event-specific group, be sure to post an announcement to existing LinkedIn groups that are comprised of members who might benefit from joining.
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Consider inviting event attendees to the next year's LinkedIn group right after your event ends. Attendees who have your event fresh in their minds are more likely to join next year's community than if you were to wait a year to promote it.
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FIND YOUR NEXT FAVORITE TOOL#3: Maintain a Industry-Specific Blog
Good content has the power to keep past attendees engaged with your event, and at the same time, attract new attendees who discover your content via search engines or social media channels.
Create an event blog with tips and tricks about topics in your industry. Providing valuable content will help increase your social media reach and bring qualified visitors to the event website.
Sales Hacker hosts a series of conferences for salespeople. While operating these events throughout the year, the company also maintains an excellent blog with resources to benefit past or current attendees and attract new attendees.
Sales Hacker's consistently helpful blog content motivates loyal readers to sign up for email updates. That makes it easier for the company to promote upcoming events, since they likely have a large number of engaged email subscribers to reach out to.
As an added benefit, creating original content for a blog provides you with excellent resources to share on the social media platforms you're using to promote your event. By providing helpful resources, you'll build a base of loyal followers who will be receptive to learning more about your event.
If you're just starting a blog or want to build an online readership, you might try tools like WordPress or Wix.
#4: Leverage the Influence of Keynote Speakers
If some of your event speakers have a significant social media presence, ask them to promote your event on their social platforms before, during and after the event. This can go a long way toward generating buzz and driving visits to your event website.
During the event, encourage speakers to take pictures with event attendees and engage with them on social media. During this year's Social Media Marketing World, Guy Kawasaki tweeted a picture with attendees to his 1.6 million Twitter followers.
Whether your event speakers are true celebrities or industry experts, be sure to leverage their online influence to strengthen your event. Consider asking speakers to share a ticket discount code with their followers prior to the event.
Keep in mind that your speakers are likely just as motivated as you are to promote your event. After all, the more people who are in attendance, the more people they'll have in the audience to engage with.
Conclusion
Social media is a great way to promote a live event and increase ticket sales.
Remember to ask event speakers to promote your event on their social media channels. Also, make use of double-sided referral systems, and create an event community on relevant social media networks. Finally, consider starting an event-specific blog to attract new visitors to your website and provide sharable content to attract qualified followers on event-related social platforms.
What do you think? Have you used social media to promote an event for your business? What tactics have worked best for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
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