If you have checked out my last article here on Eventbrite, How to Create a PR Buzz Before Your Event, it’s now time to maximise your PR and social buzz during and after your event.

In this post I’m going to reveal the 5 steps you need to take.

I did all of this when delivering a workshop called How to Find Your Press Hook (part of The 7 Secrets on How to get into the Press programme I have created).

NB Go to www.amandaruiz.co.uk/posteventpr to download your free checklist that you can print off and take to your event so you don’t forget the essential actions you should do when running your event.

Create an event hashtag

For our recent event, we created the hashtag #IAMVISIBLE so on the night, people could tweet about the event using the designated hashtag – this is great as not only are you creating an instant community where your attendees can network with each other, but you can also go into your Twitter analytics after the event to ‘stalk’ how the interest was!

It’s great fun to do as you will see spikes of activity around your event. Looking into the 5 days around the event (2 days before, 1 day of the event, and 2 days after), I had 2.6k Twitter impressions over that 5 day period – not bad huh?!

Pro Tip: Make sure everyone can see your Twitter handle and the hashtag by having it displayed and printed prominently all across your event.

Livestream the event on Periscope or Meerkat

If you have already created a buzz about the event, you will have accrued quite a following with people who have registered or expressed an interest in the event.

Let these people know a few hours before the event that it will be live streamed via Periscope or Merrkat and also live tweet to your followers during the event that you are Periscoping/Meekating it (if you personally can’t do this ask a friend to do this for you) and in this way, the non-attendees actually turn out to be attendees!

Pro Tip: Showing outsiders what they’re missing at the event helps build FOMO, which will help you sell out future events.

Ask for photos

Before delivering the workshop, do some networking with the attendees – this is great for several reasons – you will feel more relaxed and you won’t be delivering to a room filled with complete strangers, plus you may see some familiar faces to whom you can direct your talk at.

So when you have chatted to about 4 or 5 people whilst the room is filling up, don’t forget to politely ask them if they could take a few photos of you when you are in mid-flow. These shots will come in very useful post-event as you will be able to use them as social proof that the room was brim-full of interested attendees listening to your amazing tips and insights.

You will see a shot on my Facebook business page http://business.facebook.com/AmandaRuizUK – this shot was taken by an attendee who had tweeted the picture so I asked him (once I had finished speaking!!) to send it over to me right there and then via email.

It’s always best to “carpe diem” and ask these kinds of favours to be done on the spot as very often people get back from events and forget to do what they have promised to do – it may feel pushy, but if you don’t do that, you may regret it.

Pro Tip: When sharing photos on Twitter, don’t forget to tag yourself and others in the photo with the correct handles so everyone is notified you’ve shared it, increasing the chances they will retweet to their followers.

Get testimonials

When you have finished your talk, invariably you will have people queuing up to speak to you afterwards and to ask you questions about the content you have delivered.

This is another great way to connect with your audience plus it also gives you a great opportunity to ask if they’d be prepared to do a short 30 second video testimonial.

Again, it’s a very good idea to ask people on the spot as with all good intentions once people get back to their busy offices it is more likely you won’t receive the testimonial you were promised that night – so by being polite and of course charming, how could they possibly refuse you?!

Don’t forget to bring along your device that you can record on. Here is one example I grabbed post event from an amazing woman (who is also a DJ as well as social media expert).

If you can’t manage to get video testimonials, don’t worry, you can ask for written ones when you’re networking after your talk – have some pre-prepared print outs asking for the testimonial that they can fill out on the spot.

Another place to find readymade testimonials is on your Twitter feed – once you are back at your office, take a look at tweets you have been tagged in for some great attendee comments.

People love to share where they are and what they are doing so if you haven’t made a point of asking people to tweet about your event (which I recommend you do) then taking a post event twitter feed search is a good idea.

Pro Tip: If you don’t manage to grab those testimonials at the event, you can email all your attendees via Eventbrite on the same day/night, and ask them for a testimonial as part of a short feedback survey. Offer a free ticket to your next event for any that you publish as an added incentive.

Follow-up newsletters

I did two follow-up newsletters for my latest event – one was sent to the people who had registered but didn’t turn up – see it here.

You’ll notice I gave the newsletter title a catchy headline – “Standing Room Only” and then shared some insights I had given out on the night as well as including the video testimonial and some lovely tweets.

Next up was to email the attendees thanking them for coming to the event and sharing the slides. See it here.

So as you can see I am offering value in each of the newsletters in order to gain trust, respect and credibility, so the next time I have an event or I want to communicate with them they know I am a reliable source of information and am the expert for entrepreneurs wanting to learn how to get into the press.

Finally, don’t forget to cut and paste your email newsletter and add it as a new post in LinkedIn, to share the links via Twitter and Facebook and generally keep the post event buzz alive!

Pro Tip: If you’d like to grow your email list, Eventbrite are offering a fantastic free course (delivered via 5 x daily emails) on how to do just this.

Summary

Building social buzz during and after your events is all about using the content you have there, and sharing it in fun, accessible and easily shareable way.

If you can crack that, you’ll notice the interest in your future events skyrocket!

If you would like more free advice on creating buzz for your business, I would like to invite you on one of my free online PR workshops so you can learn how to get into the press – register here.

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5 Ways to Create Social Buzz During and After Your Event