Aside from using social media platforms to promote your event, here 3 more online mediums you can use to get your networking event in front of your target audience: 1. Your blog. You can either write a post about the event on an existing business blog, or create a separate blog dedicated to the event. No matter which route you go, make sure you create a post or a series of posts announcing the event. We actually did both. We posted about the event here, here and here. And because the MACsWomen’s Summit is a fairly big annual recurring event, we decided to create not just a separate blog for it, but an entirely separate website, which you can find right here. 2. Your email. Email marketing has remained one of the most effective marketing tools out there. So promote your event in a big way by tapping into your email list. The first thing you need to do is setup an account with an email marketing program like MailChimp, Aweber, or Mailerlite. Once you’ve picked your email software of choice, it’s time to lay out an email marketing strategy. Start sending promotions and event newsletters but make sure that you’re not overdoing it by flooding their inbox with daily emails. If you're still months away from the event date, you can send event-related emails and promotions at least once a fortnight. As the event draws closer, you should also start to pick up your marketing – a weekly event update, and then send an email every 2 days a week before the event. 3. Google, Instagram and Facebook ads. If you have the budget, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go this route. The best thing about paid ads is that your event will be displayed right in front of people who are most likely to join it – they are highly targeted promotions. Few tips here: Research about the keywords that you’ll be using in your ad, prepare about 10 different ad copies, and do some tests to know which of the keywords/copies work best! Over to you.., Any thoughts or comments you want to share? Please add them below.
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Whether you're planning to host an online (webinar, teleclass) or offline event (summit, expo, conference, etc), social media marketing is an effective and cost-efficient way to reach your target audience. The trick is to know which online channels to use and when to use them.
The first things you need to do is pick out 3 or 4 social media platforms where you’re likely to get the most engagement from your target audience, and focus the bulk of your marketing efforts on these platforms. Remember that you must have a different approach for each platform to make sure that you’re engaging your audience the right way. Here are smart tips on how you can maximize online exposure for your networking event on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn:
On Twitter, you can either create a separate account for the event (with the event name as the Twitter handle) or opt to just use your existing business account to promote the event.
For example, I could have created a Twitter account for our Annual MACsWomen’s Summit and use @macswomensummit as the handle. I prefer not to do that because MACsWomen’s Group current twitter account and its handle, @MACsWomen, is branding enough and I'd rather manage everything in one place. As for tweets, make sure that you are not just tweeting about the event all the time because that would just annoy your followers. A 1-4 ratio would be a smart strategy – for every 1 event-related tweet, you send out 4 non-event tweets. You should also ask people to share your event by asking them for a re-tweet. Get "A Framework For Success: The Ultimate Twitter Planner" to help you get more clients from Twitter.
You can do a range of different activities on your Facebook pages to drum up interest and excitement about your upcoming event.
These include:
Just like on Twitter, you can also make a dedicated Facebook page for you event, but for the same reason state above, I just used MACsWomen's official Facebook page and opted not to create a separate, dedicated account for the MACsWomen’s Summit. Create an event from your business page to help promote the event and allow attendees to share and invite their Facebook friends, easily. Also, make sure that you create an RSVP and invite your friends weeks before the event. This will attract more interest and engagement.
Most often than not, you and the people in your network already share the same interest or are already in the same niche. This means that it would be a lot easier for you to reach out to them and invite them to join your event. LinkedIn is an excellent platform to connect with other professional women and share your upcoming event. One of the neat features about LinkedIn is that you can extract your level one connections email addresses into a .csv file and send them a more personalized invitation to your event.
Hashtags
To increase the discoverability factor of your event, don’t forget your hashtag. Put a hashtag on all of your promotional materials (if possible). Even when the actual event is already over, people can still use hashtags like #macssummit when they have something to say about their experience at the event. Hashtags are incredibly useful especially if your event is recurring.
If you would like to get help with promoting your next event or your business using social media. Purchase a 90-minute session here to get the winning strategy you need for your business to succeed online. As an online visibility coach, I help my clients get results through strategic planning and positioning to create profits. I'd love to help you do the same. |
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August 2019
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