Engaging Guests on Social Media at Your Event

 ​Social Media should not be thought of as just another website for your company. While posting pictures of events after the fact is always recommended, social media outlets are great ways to engage your followers in “real-time.” Through applications like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you can engage your guests during your event.

Before your event even begins Facebook can be a valuable tool. Facebook allows you to create an event and invite people to attend. You can add information about tickets, agendas, etc. to your event via web links, and anyone sending an RSVP via this method is already looking to your Facebook page for information. Use that to promote engagement during the event itself. For example, during a seminar, you can make announcements of upcoming or sponsored sessions, or you can assemble a quick ‘meet-up” for the guests at your event and post the details.

Twitter is also a great engagement tool during events. The first step to using Twitter during your event is to create a #hashtag that is unique to your event. Think of a hashtag as a label for your posts. Once your posts are labeled, people can begin to follow your hashtags. This is again a wonderful way to announce things, but can also be used for more immediate engagement with your guests. As sessions are happening, have your guests live tweet interesting information or questions. You could also host a “tweet-up” where your guests can virtually gather afterwards to discuss the day’s events.

Instagram is one of the social media outlets that not many people think of when it comes to real-time engagement. However, a picture is worth a thousand words. An easy way to engage your guests is to hold a photo contest. Guests can snap photos around your events, add a caption and a hashtag, and then you can decide which person most perfectly captured the moment.

There are many ways to incorporate social media into your events. For more ideas, contact us.