The more that a business can connect with its customers, the more engaged they’re going to be. With so much of sales and marketing done digitally, events are a great way to break the routine, allowing for face-to-face interaction with your customers. In fact, if you’re hunting around for promotional marketing ideas, events can generate a lot of buzz.
To make your promotional marketing event viral, don’t look first to Facebook or Instagram. Although often overlooked, Twitter still remains the best platform for sharing event updates and news. Through the four strategies below, you can leverage Twitter to make your event as impactful as possible:
Use a catchy hashtag
Hashtags are the best way to get your event trending organically on Twitter. It plays a huge part all throughout your event campaign—not just during the event, but also before and after it.
Your event hashtag should be memorable, logical, and unique. Keep it short, with less than four words. Once someone looks at it, they should be able to figure out what event it’s referring to. Usually the hashtag is closely based on the event name, for clarity’s sake.
Tweets with hashtags are more likely to be viral, earning more retweets and even double the engagement as regular tweets. At the start of your event campaign, make it official by tweeting it and adding it to your Twitter’s bio. You can even mention it to speakers so they can spread the word. In any case, declaring a hashtag early on will save you from having to compete with other hashtag versions that attendees might come up with.
Examples: Impact Summit 2019 uses the hashtag #ThisIsImpact19, which sounds relevant to their event. They repeatedly mention it in their event tweets, and it’s included in their bio.
Build anticipation before the event
Way before your event starts, you should already be promoting it. Depending on the size of your event, this is usually at least a few weeks before. If you want to throw in competitions or early registration promos, then you can start even earlier.
To build anticipation, keep a steady stream of tweets going. For example, you can showcase any promotional merchandise you’ll be giving away at the event, thank your sponsors, describe your event lineup, or react to tweets about it. You can also collaborate with influencers to share it with their followers and do quick interviews with speakers. Counting down during the days before the event is also a great strategy!
The rule here is to keep your tweets concise. Because Twitter is a text-heavy platform, tweets with images or videos stand out, garnering 150% more retweets. Throw in a mix of photos, branded event artwork, and other visual content to keep it lively.
Example: For the 2019 BlogHer Creators Summit, BlogHer was already tweeting about it at least three months before. Their tweets were image-heavy and included teaser GIFS as well as profiles of speakers.
Harness the power of live tweeting
During your promotional marketing event, live tweeting is a must. There should be someone managing your Twitter account during the event and sharing real-time updates. They can ask questions to engage attendees on Twitter, post quotes from speakers, and re-tweet what attendees are saying. This way, it builds brand visibility because people who aren’t part of the event can still see what’s going on.
Beyond your event’s main Twitter account, as many people as possible should be encouraged to live tweet. This includes your event team, speakers, affiliates, and sponsors as well as regular guests. Ask them to use the event’s hashtag, or suggest that they share photos of themselves on social media.
Examples: TED Talks implements this strategy well in their event TED 2019, where they regularly tweeted informative quotes and even videos of speakers. Practically every tweet earned several retweets and likes, and attendees joined in with their own tweets.
Put up a Twitter wall
If you have a larger budget, Twitter walls are a fun way to encourage attendees to tweet and to make them more engaged. A Twitter wall consists of a screen that shows tweets with your event’s hashtag in real-time. When attendees tweet, it instantly pops up on the Twitter wall. This ends up being a hit among attendees, especially since they can also see what other people are saying.
Place your Twitter wall somewhere that’s highly visible, but make sure that it’s not being distracting. More than a display, a Twitter wall can help you with interactive Q&A segments where you get the questions from Twitter users. You can also stage competitions such as daring attendees to tweet their best photo during the event, and the entries will appear on the wall.
Example: Social Media Week Dubai had a large Twitter wall, with the statement “Share with #SMWiDubai” at the top of the screen. Tweets were moderated to avoid offensive content. Attendees liked it so much that engagement went up by 200%.
Twitter is still the go-to for posting about events, and no other platform can match up to its capabilities with live coverage. By using Twitter strategically for your promotional marketing event, you can expand your reach, engage your customers, and make it an event to remember.
