Social Media Marketing Tactics for Events

Social media marketing isn’t only used to market products and services. If you organize and host either online or offline events, consider using social media tools that promote registrations. While you can post to the social networks you use with messages about your events, there are additional ways to increase awareness.

Here are some tactics to leverage social network features that help market your event.

1. Create Event Pages

The most direct way to promote your events is to utilize the Event Page feature on the social networks you use. Both Facebook and LinkedIn offer Event Pages.

The Event Page forms are pretty straightforward, prompting you to specify if it is an online or offline event and providing fields for event title, date, time, place, description, etc. You can design and upload a banner to appear at the top of the Event Page. Note that event banner dimensions can vary, such as 1280x720 pixels on LinkedIn and 1920 x 1005 on Facebook.

Because you can create events that are either hosted by you personally or by your company, make sure you are creating the Event pages through your company pages. On LinkedIn, once you are on your company page, you should see Events on the left side of the landing page. When you click on that, you have the option to create an event. Double check that it shows that it is hosted by your company.

On Facebook, switch over to your company page account. This can be done by visiting your company page, then clicking on the Switch button. Make sure you are operating as your company by checking for your company logo or company profile image on the upper right corner of your Facebook screen.

Neither of the Event Page features allows you to save a draft so be prepared to fill in the entire form and publish it immediately. Once published, a new post will appear on your LinkedIn or Facebook feed with the banner graphic and a link to the Event Page.

If you have an advertising budget, you can include social ads in your marketing mix. These are paid advertisements using each social network’s self-serve ad manager. For example, you can boost your Event Page on Facebook to garner more views or create an ad promoting it. On LinkedIn, you can create an ad specifically for your event.

2. Leverage your Event Pages

Creating Event Pages can provide exposure for your event, but don’t stop at publishing them. There are several features that you can take advantage of to increase visibility including inviting your friends and connections.

On Facebook, as soon as you publish an Event Page, you are shown a screen where you can invite friends to the event. These are your personal Facebook friends and not your Page followers. You can also post about the event to your personal Facebook profile and to your company page. On LinkedIn, you can post about the event on your personal profile with a link to the Event Page or post to your company page.

Both LinkedIn and Facebook Event Pages also have a Share feature that makes it easier to spread the word about your event in several ways including through reposting, through each network’s inbox, and through each network’s chat or messaging function.

3. Use Instagram Reminder and Countdown Features

Instagram has several features that can help boost visibility for your event including:

Countdown Stickers. These are only available on Instagram Stories and can be applied to any photo or video. Simply select Countdown from the sticker menu, enter a title for the Countdown which can be your event name and set the date and, if time specific, the time. You can also choose All Day. Next, customize the colors of the Countdown sticker. Once you publish the Story, the Countdown sticker will start counting down to help build excitement.

Reminder posts. You can opt to add a reminder to your event-related Instagram post. This feature is only available to professional accounts so make sure you have a business account. The reminder option appears as a bell on the left corner of the post for people to click on. They’ll see the event time in their local time. You can add the reminder up to three months prior to your event and share reminder posts to your Stories for added visibility.

Per Instagram, anyone who has opted to be reminded through a reminder post will receive three notifications: an activity feed notification 24 hours before the event, an activity feed and push notification 15 minutes before the event, and an activity feed and push notification at the time of the event.

If you use Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, or TikTok, consider creating a hashtag specific to your event. This tactic is less effective on Facebook and moderately effective on LinkedIn. Remember to do a post-event wrap up with photos, videos, and commentary and add it to your Event Pages as well as your social media feeds.

As you can see, there are ways to enhance your event marketing using features on social networks you may already be using. Don’t forget to post links to your Event pages on other social networks you use to spread the word.