What are the most effective ways to promote events and conferences using social media?

List what accessibility you will have at the event. Be specific. And provide contact information for accessibility questions. The contact information should be two different ways, such as a phone number and an email. Also, ask if attendees or speakers need any other accessibility or accommodations not listed. Provide contact information or include it on the event sign up form.

One thing that I follow in my social media without thinking twice is to be Genuine...! You don't need to copy someone neither you have to do some fake thing to get viral. Every thing is a process of hard work & consistency, I follow E3 theory - Educate, Engage and Earn. I love to EDUCATE my community about my niche, and I keep them ENGAGE with my interactive content followed by EARN their trust. This is what helped me to grow my community through social media.

One thing that is really effective when promoting an event on social media is to have a clear strategy that isn’t just based on sharing details of the event, but complemented with a unique campaign to support the promotion. For example you could share insights from speakers, colleagues or people in the industry which give unique perspectives on the event topics. This helps with interactivity and engagement, allowing followers to feel part of the conversation and encourages attendance. People love people, so the more you can engage with followers through sharing opinions and perspectives pre event, the more traction you will receive. Blogs explaining your vision and goals are also effective to convey the value of the event.

Assuming you already conducted market research to develop a buyer persona, post engaging content about your event on the right platform at the right time that resonates with your ideal customer.

Build your (email) list. We started a blog 15 years ago and grew our list every year. Provide information about your industry; become an expert in your field. People will want to come to hear what you have to say.

There are many ways to define which platforms are best for your event: 1️⃣ Defining your event: Let’s say it’s an industry event about marketing and best practices in a b2b environment with several speakers and workshops. 2️⃣ Analyze your speakers: Who are they? On which platforms are they active and where do they perform best? In this case probably LinkedIn first. 3️⃣ Let’s roll! - You create an LinkedIn event with every information about your event as possible. - You share the event with your account and tag every speaker and the location (so they reshare). - You create a LinkedIn Carousel/Slides/PDF (or however you want to call these things) in which you can show every speaker with a picture, name an expertise. (Tag them again)

Carefully choose your content publishing platform. It's important to understand that you don't need to be active on all social networks. Your brand personality and your audience persona are determinants in this regard.

Dependent on your strategy, some platforms may be more suited to your objective/goals than others. For example, if you are intending to your social media platforms to communicate/engage with people already at your event (ie: For announcements, audience participation etc) then a platform such as X would be more suitable than Facebook for example. Likewise, if you are looking to share some of the highlights/key announcements from your event, LinkedIn may be better suited than Instagram Stories. Keep this in mind when working closely with event and marketing teams so that you can ensure that you are aligning your resources/social media platforms accordingly.

One tactic to consider, is leveraging prospective attendees to craft social media posts about the event on their own. This "event advocate" model as I call it, utilizes select people who are already fans or followers associated with the event or conference, to mention their planned attendance. This presents a more natural, grass-roots approach to marketing communications within the event. So how would this actually work? Look through your top engaging followers on social media. Acknowledge and thank them for their high involvement on your social media channel. Then personally invite each one to post about their planned attendance. This creates a more organic buzz, compared with promotional posts from the organization.

Choose your social networks wisely. For example, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are great for visual and interactive content, while LinkedIn and Twitter are more suited for professional and informative content. On LinkedIn, you can create a dedicated page for your event, where you can share the details, agenda, speakers, and registration link. You can also invite your connections, followers, and members of your groups to join the event, and send them reminders and updates. A LinkedIn event page can help you increase your visibility, engagement, and attendance.

Make sure accessibility is at the heart of your content. Add captions to videos, and opt for readability over unreadable poor colour contrast text. Don't just post videos of text without spoken word. Add audio descriptions to video content,and describe whats happening on screen. Ensure graphics are readable and have sufficient colour contrast for text. Left align the body of text and ensure headings are clear. When sharing images write a short description of the image (Alt Text) and add a more detailed description to caption fields or the body of texts, (Image Descriptions) If you’re creating an event hashtag make it accessible. Use a capital letter for each new word, #LikeThis

Something that worked well for me was to use AI to analyze past interactions and social behaviors, pinpointing what content your audience values the most. Then, instead of just sharing posts, you could host a mini-virtual event a week before the event, giving a taste of what's coming. Not just teasers but actual bite-sized value. I treat it like a tailgating party and it amps up excitement and gives people immediate takeaways. This way, you’re not just telling people why they should attend, you're showing them.

It all starts with the value. Value naturally evokes curiosity. How the topic will be exhibited and the ways the audience will interact with it are the extent. Alongside actionable insights and practical knowledge, the audience appreciates the speaker's credibility and overall trustworthiness. Steady progress in this segment is key, and growth in the attendees/registrants should be your growth compass.

Consider streaming weekly content with your event's participants, whether live or recorded/edited, across social media channels using a tool like StreamYard. Invite the stakeholders of the event to collaborate on the development of the content and focus on shining a light on them instead of the event itself. People will consume the content if they find the insights and personalities of the guests and the host appealing. They will associate this with the networking and professional development opportunities your event will offer. You might cache the recording or sample of whatever content you collaboratively developed on a page on your event or brand website. Consider breaking those recordings down into evergreen micro-content.

It can be difficult to ensure that content is created to a high standard when covering an event; you are often in a noisy environment, working to tight-deadlines and may have a busy agenda running from moment to moment to cover! However, ensure that you have prepared prior to attending the event is my best advice; by this I always recommend that teams create (already approved!) templates for speaker quotes, video templates where you can essentially 'slot in' fresh video content which already has a 'top & tail' whilst also having as many elements of your design(s) prepared before hand so that you can quickly produce valuable and high quality content. This preparation should form a big part of your planning as discussed previously.

Social media, more often than not, can come across as a one-sided conversation. And that disconnects the audience from you. The simple idea in my head is, 'People like talking to people', and hence, audience engagement should be part of your strategy as much as lead generation or event awareness etc. Be authentic. Be real. Ask questions that the audience is asking. Keep the audience at the forefront. Don't engage to build a metric, engage to establish a connection and foster a relationship.

Social media is a two-way conversation, so it's important to engage with your audience by responding to comments and messages, and by sharing user-generated content This can help build a sense of community around your event and encourage attendees to share their experiences on social media.

To effectively engage with your audience on social media, it is important to know your audience by understanding their interests, needs, and preferences. Authenticity is key to building trust, so use a conversational tone that is relatable and engaging. Responding to comments and messages in a timely manner shows that you value feedback and opinions. Incorporating high-quality visuals that are relevant to your brand and message can also increase engagement. Lastly, encouraging user-generated content can help you build a strong community. In summary, engaging with your audience on social media requires a deep understanding of your audience and a commitment to building authentic relationships with them.

Before a conference, I recommend creating an online community or forum where attendees can network and discuss topics related to the conference before it begins.

Another way to engage with audience is to Create dedicated event pages or groups on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn to centralize discussions, updates, and attendee interactions.

Additional tools for social listening, automation, and analytics include: 1. Zapier 2. Buffer 3. Iconosquare 4. Later 5. Mention

One thing I have found helpful is the use of survey softwares like Google forms where you are able to collect data of participants prior to the event, enabling you to further nurture the leads and contacts, alongside gain better insights about them. With their consent, you can also leverage on the data to inform them of future events which they can take part in.

Tracking and measuring your results is key as a social media marketing professional but also consider what data will be useful to others who you are going to be partnering with. If covering sessions, sharing the sentiment/quantity of social media engagements with the events team can help them to plan future events by including the most in-demand/engaged with sessions for example.

Track and Measure Results: Use analytics tools to measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts. Monitor website traffic, conversions, and registrations. Track reach, impressions, and engagement metrics using social media management tools. Collect feedback and testimonials, and employ UTM parameters or QR codes to trace the source of leads or registrations.

Tracking your results can be easy especially on a platform such as LinkedIn. Use paid advertising options such as sponsored content, sponsored InMail, text ads, display ads, video ads, etc. to boost your event promotion on LinkedIn. You can also use LinkedIn’s targeting features to reach the right audience based on their demographics, location, industry, job title, skills, interests, etc. Track and measure the performance of your ads using LinkedIn’s analytics tools.

By following these steps, you can harness the power of social media and the LinkedIn community to effectively promote your events and conferences, reaching a wider and more engaged audience.

You need to work on the visual aspects of event promotions if you really want to grab the attention of social media users. Be innovative and use the influence of speakers and prominent stakeholders of the events and conferences by posting their visual content (images, pictures) to convince your target audience about the credibility of the event

As someone who hosts and promotes events, I like to use economies of scale. A lot has to go right for someone to book an event. Are they interested in the topic? Is it affordable? How do they feel about the venue (past experience, accessibility, parking, public transport, etc.) Are they available on the date at the time of the event? Will they need to make alternative arrangements for work/their children in order to attend? A lot of these can go in your favour, but one or two can prevent someone attending. It's a good idea to list out as many of your events as possible on your landing page so that if the user wants to go, but can't make it, there's options for them to attend the next one, or at least watch a replay.

Create an experience people will want to share in their social media! Make sure it is easy to share that you will be attending the event, that you have an engaging and personalized graphic and the less steps someone needs to take to share it the better. You can also make sure keynotes and collaborators get onboard with the promotion of the event. Create a swipe copy they can use on their social media, provide images and encourage them to share it. If you can, tag them in all your communications. The main point in promotion an event on social media is to create FOMO, that way people will want to go. You create FOMO by showing what they will miss if they don't come, and a big part of that is the community so make your event feel big!

Partner with organizations and individuals participating in the events and ask them to reshare or organically share all posts with the goal of encouraging THEIR audiences to participate/attend.