7 Common Social Media Mistakes Made by Event Creators

Have you ever wondered how some of your competitors clock up thousands of followers and have content that’s always being liked and shared? Why don’t your posts generate the same response? Why are you finding it so hard to grow your audience?

When it comes to social media, there may not be a magic formula, but there are a set of best practices that have emerged. If you follow them, you will witness growth and engagement. If you don’t, you won’t.

Here are the 7 most common social media mistakes organisers make when trying to promote their events.

They don’t have a strategic plan

Social media is a marketing tool and should be treated with as much consideration as you would give to other vital pieces of collateral, such as your website.

You wouldn’t charge ahead with the copy and design if you hadn’t defined your target audience and key objectives. Your event’s presence on social media should be approached strategically – which platforms are your target market using, what type of material interests them, what messages are you trying to communicate, how will your messaging vary across the different platforms, will you pay for promoted posts or just rely on organic?

All these questions need to be answered before you embark, so you have a clear plan for your communications. All posts should be ‘on message’, creating the right image for your event and should drive the behaviours you desire.

It can be worth taking the time to plan all your posts at the start of each month, perhaps choosing a relevant theme to provide inspiration. This will not only ensure consistency, it will also save you time on a daily basis.

They don’t make anyone responsible for it

It’s true that social media is a drain on resources and is something no one had to think about until a few years ago. Now even small companies are expected to be active online, which can put pressure on a team already up to their eyes in work.

Even so, it makes sense to make one member of your team responsible for social media rather than expecting everyone to chip in – that will either become an unorganised mess or lead to no one actually doing it.

Ring fence half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon for that person to fulfil this role, which will include interacting with users as well as posting. Additionally, ensure they have a few hours at the end/start of each month to plan ahead for the coming weeks. Don’t forget to arrange for someone to cover when they go on leave!

They don’t use hashtags

Enabling users to easily search and find topics of interest, hashtags can be incredibly valuable to your event.

They’re no longer the sole domain of Twitter; such is their popularity, hashtags have been adopted by all the major social networks (excluding LinkedIn).

Hashtags help users join conversations – they simply click on a hashtag and they can see all other public posts that include the same hashtag. Using hashtags can expose your content to a wider audience and help your event get found, as well as help to build a community around your event.

You should not only create a unique hashtag for your event, you should also use existing popular hastags in your posts, so long as they’re relevant and add value, for example #travel or #cookery. Use Hashtagify Encyclopaedia to find the best hashtags to reach your audience. But don’t go overboard – studies show using more than two hashtags in a post actually hurts engagement.

They don’t promote their hashtag

It’s all very well having your own hashtag, but if you don’t tell people about it, it won’t get used.

You should start promoting it in all your pre-event communications, such as newsletters, mailshots, press releases and blogs. Make sure it’s in multiple, prominent positions on your website and/or event page – no matter where people look, they should see the hashtag!

Encourage people to use it at the event by asking speakers to include the hashtag in their slides and printing it on the event materials. Incentivise participants to include it in their posts by publishing tagged photos and statuses to a social media wall and offering prizes for the best contributions.

Twitter allows you to embed a hashtag search on your website. This is a great way to show what an awesome event you had, and how active the attendees were.

They don’t give people a reason to share

When people share your content on social media it expands your reach, driving new followers and increasing awareness of your brand.

It’s important to think about ‘shareability’ when you plan your posts. Will people want to share this information/image/video with their friends? What drives them to do so?

People share content for a variety of reasons, but the main ones are:

It evokes an emotion – laughter, tears, admiration, disgust…
It provides an alternative point of view and challenges people to think differently
It expresses a controversial opinion – be careful with this one!
It incentivises people to do something i.e. ‘like if you care’ or ‘share for a chance to win’
It relates to a common condition or experience that people can identify with
It contains valuable information they believe others will find useful

Predicting what will go viral is difficult, but post types which regularly experience success include inspirational human (and animal) stories, inspiring or funny quotes or memes, lists, cliff hanger type posts (“she opened the door and what she saw amazed her…”) and striking visuals. The more creative you can be the better.

They don’t engage in 2-way dialogue

There are many businesses that pay lip service to social media by simply pushing out one-way messages, but it actually misses the point – social media is supposed to be social!

This means engaging with other people; not just responding to posts on your wall or direct tweets, but by getting involved in conversations, sharing other people’s content and following other users.

You should seek to identify the key influencers in your field and develop relationships that can be mutually beneficial. It’s true that all this takes time, but as with any relationship, you only get out what you put in.

They produce boring content

Even if your industry sector is ‘unsexy’ there’s simply no place on social media for boring content. People use social media socially; in their own time. They want to be amused while they stand in the bus queue, entertained on their lunch break.

They do not want to be bombarded with thinly veiled sales messages or mind-numbingly boring industry news. Make sure you keep things lively and visual, with engaging images and infographics, don’t be too wordy – less is often more on social media and adopt a more informal tone than you might for other modes of communication. Stay away from corporate speak!

It’s not true that ‘boring’ brands can’t be interesting on social media – take for example 3M, the company that makes plasters and Post-it notes, they’ve notched up a staggering 121,000 followers on Twitter by investing resources into creating original, creative content. There’s no reason why you can’t do it too!

Conclusion

While social media may be free, the work is not. To make the most of this marketing channel takes time, creativity, commitment and, above all, strategy!

7 Common Social Media Mistakes EventProfs Make