You have assembled a World-Class lineup of brand name general session speakers, as well as an educational program featuring the circuit’s leading high-impact thought leaders. The six-figure investment in speaker honoraria is steep, but this part was easy compared to the countless hours of evaluating speakers, working with volunteer leadership, and coming to a consensus within the organization. When The Speaker Experts started in this industry 30 years ago, the next step was to print these speakers in a program and distribute to the membership with some help from the U.S. Post Office. In today’s digital age however, the construction of a program is just the start of a process that can benefit membership and the association for years to come.
In order to help us understand how better to throw gasoline on the social media fire, The Speaker Experts enlisted the help of sought after speaker and social media expert Corey Perlman. Below are his thoughts on orchestrating a comprehensive social media strategy for your big event.
Putting Together Your Comprehensive Social Media Event Strategy
Social media is an intrinsic part of how people experience almost everything these days. And that is especially true when it comes to events, with social sharing and digital engagement providing a greater level of impact and an avenue for significantly amplifying your event strategy. Below are some tips on how event planners can develop a thoughtful and comprehensive event strategy to successfully boost their next meeting by harnessing the power of social media.
Since no event starts at registration or ends with the closing keynote, your social media strategy should parallel the life cycle of the event—pre-event, on-site and post-event. It’s also important to consider who your target audience is to determine which platform(s) to use—which sites will enable you to reach your clients, while enhancing the scope of your audience? With 320 million active users (and counting), Twitter is one of the most popular (and user-friendly) platforms to promote events.
Pre-Event
Social activity leading up to the event is all about creating buzz and attracting the right people to your event! This is the time to inform and intrigue followers, broaden your reach, and start to encourage conversation and engagement around your event.
Create A Memorable, User-Friendly Event Hashtag
- Consider including initials or numbers to create a hashtag that is short, unique and easy to remember. A little research can help you identify if one is taken/has already been used, so you can avoid intermingling your event conversation with someone else’s and confusing followers.
Incorporate your hashtag on your event website, in promotional communications and even some unconventional locations, like inserting it into your email signature—just like anything else, the more exposure a hashtag gets, the better the chance that people will use and remember it.
Lead Time
- As mentioned above, starting early to allow yourself solid lead time can help you get the most out of your social media campaign and build awareness over a period of time. Just like movie trailers get people excited for an upcoming feature film, incorporating enough lead time as a part of your event strategy allows you time to create and organize great content, build your audience, and tweak certain things, when necessary.
Consistency
- Ensure your tone and engagement levels are consistent. Cute and cheeky in one post and serious in another has the potential to confuse (and likely disengage) followers.
- Make sure to encourage engagement by sharing and responding to comments made by attendees. Whether you ‘like’, respond to or re-post messages, ensure you are consistent and that you avoid reacting to certain posts and not others.
Promotion
Use social platform(s) to offer early registration discounts or reveal exciting news, like announcing who the keynote speaker(s) will be. Ramp up anticipation with a few intriguing posts about how excited you are to reveal who the keynote will be—everyone likes a little surprise and delight.- If you’re not getting the engagement or reach you’d like to see, consider creating a budget for digital advertising. A small budget for boosting or promoting posts on Facebook can be extremely helpful to project your message out to a larger audience.
Utilize Speakers/ Talent
- Ask speakers to promote the event using the hashtag—this is a great and effective way to expand exposure within your event strategy
On-Site
Social activity during your event is just as important as pre-event promotion, especially to capture the essence and power of the live event experience. It is also crucial that you recognize and acknowledge your brand ambassadors—your attendees! They have the power to amplify your event authentically, so make sure you are encouraging, monitoring and maximizing opportunities.
Encourage Sharing
Maximize the power of your audience by making your hashtag easily visible and encourage sharing.- Consider running contests throughout your event—like incentivizing users with the most creative posts or publish clues to a scavenger hunt that runs throughout the conference.
Use a Social Management Tool
- Platforms like HootSuite and TweetDeck make it easy to monitor activity on Twitter around a hashtag—use these tools to monitor and engage with attendees by liking or retweeting their posts and responding to messages, when appropriate.
- Encourage your speakers to consider using tools like Kiwilive or Poll Everywhere to keep the audience engaged and connected.
Maximize Video Opportunities
- With platforms like Livestream, it’s now easier than ever to bring individuals who couldn’t attend the event into the audience in real time and experience the power of the live event experience.
- If live streaming isn’t in the cards, consider hiring a videographer to record keynotes, presentations and other parts of your event to archive for future use.
- Periscope and Facebook Live are two growing platforms for live video. Consider tactics for encouraging use among attendees, or using the platform to stream other activities during the event, like post-keynote interviews.
Post-Event
Continue the momentum with your post event strategy! Utilize social content from the event to further amplify it—in follow-up messaging for attendees, communications to other customers, and to promote future events. Identify where you can use video, images, commentary and testimonials on your website, in your database and via social channels.
[Continue to] Maximize Video Opportunities
Video from the event can (and should) be used long after the closing keynote—whether it is to evoke the excitement of the event for those who attended, offer an opportunity for those who couldn’t attend to be part of it, or start to amplify next year’s event. And with platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook allowing video, sharing video via social is easier than ever.
Review Activity
- Social activity from events provides planners candid, unedited feedback from clients or customers on everything from the food to the keynote speakers to the Wi-Fi connection—don’t discount the significance of this commentary, especially as you consider your next event.
- Examine posts from attendees during the event for photos and testimonials—on-the-ground insights on how amazing your keynote speaker was or photos taken from their vantage point are invaluable marketing assets.
Harnessing the power of social media throughout the event life cycle by developing a comprehensive event strategy provides planners with the opportunity to effectively make their event much bigger than it is. Use these tips for before, during and after your event to broaden your reach, provide clients/attendees with unique and valuable opportunities to engage, participate and be a part of the conversation, and develop a unique record of what happened and the content that was created.
About Our Guest Author – Corey Perlman
Social Media Expert & Bestselling Author
Renowned for his ability to illustrate the strength and value of social media to audiences ranging from C-Suite executives to communications managers, Corey Perlman is the thought leader and speaker that corporations and associations, including Dale Carnegie Training, the Retail Leaders Industry Association, and the Dallas Cowboys turn to for expertise on remaining relevant in an increasingly competitive marketplace and rapidly accelerating business landscape. From generating leads through active monitoring and content creation, to incorporating the latest social commerce tools and SEO best practices, Perlman captivates audiences at his speaking events across the country as he helps organizations harness the power of social media in ways that directly impact their bottom line. For more information, please visit Corey Perlman’s webpage.
Free Copy of Social Media Overload!
The Speaker Experts have acquired 30 copies of Corey Perlman’s book Social Media Overload! Simple Social Media Strategies for Overwhelmed and Time-Deprived Businesses, and would be delighted to send you a complimentary copy. Please contact us via our blog, email, or telephone.
Gary McManis & Jay Conklin
The National Speakers Association – Influence 2016, held from July 23-26, 2016 at the JW Marriott in Phoenix, Arizona. The National Speakers Association is a professional speakers organization that supports the pursuit of public speaking as a business. Among the 3,500 NSA members are some of the best and most in-demand speakers, consultants, coaches, and trainers in the world. Being selected by your peers to speak on the main stage for this organization is a prestigious and important designation. Frankly, to be featured as a General Session speaker at this meeting means you are the best of the best. This year, The Speaker Experts were not surprised to see these four speakers up on the NSA Main Stage:
to network, discuss business practices, strategize for business growth, and preview speakers tied into the meeting theme “Disrupt, Innovate, Thrive.” The latter is of particular relevance to the reader of this blog, who is tasked with evaluating and scheduling professional speakers. IASB can have their pick of the world’s leading speakers, as an invitation to speak before these high-powered speaker “agents” can result in increased income and demand on the association and corporate speaking circuits. Below are the speakers selected to present at the 2016 IASB Annual Convention. They represent a combination of established speakers, celebrities, and up-and-comers:
The Speaker Experts 