Christmas Carol Competition

Through Christmas carols, you can continue the singing of age-old carols that share the gospel message. It’s one of the most distinctive yet simple ideas that stay evergreen and not the one to be missed out no matter what your event is. One way to make it more engaging is having a friendly carol competition to have more participants show up along with family and friends to show their support. 

Throw In a Bit Of Charity

Community-based events are all about sharing and caring. Incorporate these elements in your service by hosting fundraisers for the nearby old-age home or collect donations through dinner service. You can never go wrong with some hot cocoa and cookies to accompany the winters. Whether you’re planning a fundraiser or charity event, you can use our flat 50% rebate offer along with our accept donations feature for our online ticket store and virtual box office. 

Don’t forget to Create Your Event using our Christmas Promo Code:

Promo Code: CHRISTMAS25

Christmas Eve Candlelit Dinner

This could be part of your charity event plan where you set up an event for a Candlelit Dinner after the church service is over. A perfect way to bring the community together to celebrate with food in the peaceful candlelit atmosphere.  Events like these could be set-up using our Reserved Seating plan in case you want to hold seats for your sponsors and community heads.  

Holiday Food Baskets

You can tie-up with your local bakery or dessert shop to pitch in with Holiday Food baskets and goodies that could be handed out to those in need. After all, it is the season to be jolly and share the joy with everyone. A little effort and contribution from everyone go a long way. 

Install A Photobooth

Some might profess that a quiet Church event can sometimes get boring and lengthy. Up the ante by installing a photo booth because who doesn’t like taking a family photo in their best attire. A sure shot way to keep the participation level high and end the service with fun and memorable moments.

We hope these church Christmas event ideas help you plan in advance. For more-event related ideas and insights on the event industry, you can subscribe to our blog.

The post Christmas Eve Ideas For Church Event Organizers appeared first on Yapsody.

I won’t deny, social media definitely consumes a lot of time, and for busy people like y’all, it can wreck your schedule. But, there are ways to manage it, and here I’m going to explain five top ones:

ON THE CLOCK

Event planners practically live off clocks and calendars, so this shouldn’t be a tough one. When you sit down to post event updates on social media to sell your event tickets, you might get distracted really easily, especially when there’s always that ‘View 10 New Tweets’ and ‘20+ New Stories’ popping up again and again. To top it all, you now have push notifications on your smartphones for all twenty social media apps that you’ve installed.

Give specific time windows to these outlets and only be active on them during those intervals. First thing in the morning, plan out your social media ‘schedule’ and stick to it. Turning off your notifications will definitely work since you won’t feel the urge to go back every 10 minutes to check your feed and spend so much time on it. Also, make sure that whenever you’re working on a platform during the time allotted to it, work ONLY on it – create content, engage with your followers, interact with people and so on.

A LOT AT ONCE

Having pre-produced content in bulk always helps, because you won’t have to fidget with new ideas and find ways to execute them right at the eleventh hour. Whenever you manage to squirm a little time off, maybe just before you sleep, after you wake up, during breakfast, or while traveling, you can list out tips related to your industry and post them on Twitter. These same tips can be converted to infographics that you can post on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest (try using PicMonkey or Canva for the same) and also include your logo in these pictures to increase your branding.

Yes, content creation might take some time, but scheduling it is a cakewalk for an event planner, at least. Use apps like Hootsuite to schedule hourly Tweets, and follow a similar approach with Facebook posts as well.

SMALL IS BIG

When you have ideas on your mind, you want to jump into the implementation. And if you take a really big leap, you might just fall and break your head. This simply means that just because there are a hundred social media outlets out there, you don’t have to be on each one of them all at once. Instead, start with platforms that you’re familiar with, or the ones that are popular in your niche. Later, when you are smoothly managing these platforms and are still left with enough time to start promoting on others, you could expand to more channels.

HOW FREE IS FREE TIME?

As I already mentioned, you could use up your free time (or ‘dead’ time, as they call it) for following up on your social media accounts. This is usually the time where you anyway can’t do something else that’s really productive, for example, when you are waiting in the checkout queue at the supermarket, or waiting for someone at the restaurant before a meeting. You could utilize this time to check your feed, retweet people on Twitter, and you could also create new content using your phone.

SCHEDULE YOUR CONTENT

This is probably a continuation of the second point. For every kind of content that you want to put up online, you can have a rough idea in your mind about the where, when, and how. Divide your content into categories, and then plan how much from each one of it are you going to post in a day, or over a week. So, you won’t have to spend another hour contemplating the kind  of content you want to post, instead, you’ll have a domain that’ll give you a line of thinking when you’re considering what to post.

IN CONCLUSION

So, there you go. Now that you know it won’t be that difficult to manage your social media accounts, you can utilize that time you spent stressing out for coming up with new social media strategies, all the while keeping these five tips at the back of your head.

The post How To Effectively Manage Multiple Social Media Accounts appeared first on Yapsody.

Set Clear Goals

The first thing on your mind – to have clear goals for your event planning ideas. Depending upon the kind of goals you want to achieve with this event, you can proceed to decide what kind of event would be suitable. Later, you also have to take into account the attributes of your target audience, the impression you want to create on them, and what can you attendees gain from your event.

Team Up

For small business owners, events can be a little heavy on your pockets. Collaborate with similar businesses to share the workload, expenses, and of course, the benefits. You could even hire a professional event organizer to make sure your event is remembered by all your attendees. Also, ensure that the marketing needs of each of the businesses are met during the event.

Help Is Given To Who Ask For It 

And if this is your first time organizing an event, you need to ask for it. Most people think – “How much effort is it going to take me to put up an event that’s only going to last a few hours?” and the answer is A LOT. Setting a date, finding a venue, organizing a team and allotting tasks, finding caterers, putting up decorations, sending invites – it’s a seemingly endless list. Don’t panic; ask event organizers or those who have done it before to help you out. In such cases, collaborations can be highly beneficial.

The Right Kind Of Promotion 

More than what you say or how you say it, the right kind of promotion relies on where you say it. Once you know who your target audience is, you’ll be able to find out their online and offline hangouts and carry out promotional activities there. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are regulars when it comes to social media marketing. Apart from these, you could go up to your customers and clients and get the word out about your event face-to-face, encouraging your team members to do the same, too.

Incentivize Event Attendees

Even after the right kind of promotion, you might want to be on the safer side and ensure attendance by offering the right kind of incentives. A remarkable guest speaker, a quirky theme or venue, interesting interactive sessions, all pose as points that intrigue attendees and make them register for events. In fact, they might even recommend your event to their friends, boosting people to buy tickets for your event and filling up your venue.

Return Gifts

Who doesn’t like gifts, now? All kinds of freebies make event attendees happy. You don’t have to necessarily provide them with expensive ones. Promotional goodies, product samples, information packets, all are real charmers. They create brand recall after your corporate events are done.

Get Feedback

Where there is scope of being better, there is scope for growth. Getting feedback from your attendees is extremely important so that you can figure out your flaws and correct them, and polish the things you did right. Yapsody lets you have a personalized FAQ section on your online ticket platform, and you can even mail your attendees a short questionnaire. Apart from that, publish blog posts and update your Facebook and Twitter with the highlights of your event, so that your attendees have access to the wonderful moments they spent at your event.

The post What Makes A Corporate Event Successful? appeared first on Yapsody.

Organizing and hosting an event are definitely big, BIG tasks. Often, these tire out presenters so much that once the event is done, they don’t care to look back and analyze anything; instead, they move on to the next event, looking for a change. This, I believe, is one of the biggest mistakes that event organizers commit.

Unless you evaluate your event, your success, your downfalls, you won’t be able to figure out the kind of mistakes you’ve committed, and what changes you should bring about in order to evade those mistakes in your next event. Hence, we have compiled a guide to the evaluation process for your event so that the next time you’re through with the event, analyzing it doesn’t seem like a big, BIG task.

Before we start…

There are a couple of things you need to have with you in order to start off with the evaluation process, and these include:

1. Attendee Feedback

This can be obtained through various means, and it is an absolute necessity if you want to know if your event goals have been reflected in your audience’s perspectives. You can ask them to fill out online forms in exchange for some incentives, or you can hand out hard copies during the event and collect them as they leave. If you have enough time on your hand, you could also create a focus group and have a meeting.

2. The Raw Data

Meaning, the initial information that you obtained before the event started. For example, if you asked a few questions to the ones who registered (why are you attending, where did you hear about the event), you could define the attributes of your target audience. At the same time, you could tally their answers with the responses you get from the event feedback and see if you’ve lived up to expectations.

3. Some Dedicated Time

Within 1-2 weeks of your event, schedule some time that your team can dedicate only for the evaluation of your event. Don’t make it longer than that, because with fading memories, you might lose important insights. At the same time, don’t keep it on the next day of your event because everybody needs time to settle, let things sink in, and do personal analyses.

I. THE BEGINNING

When you start working during the “dedicated time”, the first step is to analyze the basic questions, or the key questions that sum up the entire evaluation process. These questions are:

What went well?

It is only human to have the desire to jump on the improvement section first, but if you have to keep the meeting going and your team motivated, you need to start with your successes. Celebrate your accomplishments and make sure every team member, by the end of this session, has at least one thing to be proud of. Discussing this only gives you a reason to continue practicing the activities that were successful, and maybe make them even better for better results.

What can be improved?

Do. Not. Accuse. People.

Just don’t. Because, nobody is perfect, and if you pinpoint people for their mistakes, it will only demoralize them. Plus, it makes much more sense to discuss improvements in things and processes. Ask every team member to contribute at least one idea that could’ve made the event better (and can make the next one the best one) and appreciate the team’s efforts to learn and grow.

How can the ROI be increased?

ROI (Return on Investment) revolves around efficiency, of appropriately utilizing time and resources. A lot of things work in the favor of the event, but that need not imply that they were just as feasible. They might have taken up a lot of time and efforts to actually give required results. On the other hand, there may be tasks, activities, and practices that may have just consumed 20% of your total time, money, efforts, and resources, and given just as amazing results. You need to look into these, and avoid repeating or continuing the ones that are favorable as a whole, but not really efficient.

II.BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN STRATEGY AND EXECUTION

Did this event reflect your vision?

First, remind everyone about the mission and vision of your organization. Next, ask them these questions:

1. What part of the event reflected the company’s vision in its entire entirety and how?
2. What part, on the other hand, was distant from the company’s vision and why?
3. As a whole, was this event an embodiment of the company’s ideals?

Did this event go hand-in-hand with the needs of your customers?

Because if it didn’t, honestly, you practically wasted a lot of time right there. That sure sounds scary, so here’s how you evaluate this portion:

1. Who were your target audience, the people for whom you put on the event?
2. Did the list of attendees comprise of these people?
3. If it didn’t, why? What were the reasons for them to not attend your event?
4. And those who did attend, what were their goals behind it?
5. Did your event meet their goals? Were they content?
6. From attendee feedback, what was the one change almost everyone suggested?
7. Also, what aspect was the most loved one?
8. Would they like to attend your event again?

Every time you define your target audience, you need to have framed the persona (the attributes) of your ideal customer. Cross-check if your attendees meet the same attributes as that of an ideal customer. If no, then your demographics have been altered and you need to update the persona.

III. EVOLUTION OF A NEW STRATEGY

Now that you’ve successfully evaluated your previous event, you have to let the results of the same reflect in your strategy for the next event. For that, we’ll have four main aspects we’ll be looking into:

The Target Audience

Your strategy should revolve around your customer. Quite a lot of time, you base it on your customer demographics, while in reality, basing it on their needs can actually prove to be a lot more fruitful. Consider the following points-

1. What are their primary concerns and opportunities?
2. What is it about your event that they can’t find elsewhere?
3. How does it answer their concerns and offer them the opportunities they need?
4. What would be the repercussions if your event didn’t do the above?

Think about this – picture your attendee describing your event to a friend. Make your event something that would match that description. Once you’ve figured that out, you’re halfway down the road to a successful event strategy.

Your Needs

Of course, your customer’s needs are important, but not at the cost of the needs of your own company. You need to set a primary goal for the company that the event is supposed to fulfill, and 2-3 supporting ones. They can range from marketing to revenue generation, but you have to set them down clearly and not deviate from them while strategizing.

Measuring Your Needs

Once you figure out the needs of your customers as well as your company’s goals, you’ll have to figure out ways to measure them and track them. For example, if your company wants to generate revenue, costing should be your priority. On the other hand, if you’re looking at growth, you might want to consider the amount of sales and sideline the costing.

SWOT Analysis

The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis is a classic that NEVER fails. This is how you can use it while creating your strategy:

• STRENGTHS: You could be the proud owner of the most brilliant sales department, or an amazing marketing team, and these pose as the strengths that make you different from your competitors.
• WEAKNESSES: Are you not able to retain your attendees? Are you running low on staff? These are internal issues that are inhibiting growth, and need to be rectified.
• OPPORTUNITIES: Identifying and rectifying your weaknesses definitely comes under opportunities, but there are other aspects like new technology warding off old competitors but giving birth to new ones, the availability of a new kind of location, and so on.
• THREATS: While weaknesses are within the company, threats are usually external factors that may disrupt your event. Global economic downturn, launch of a similar event, all come under this roof.

IV. EXTRACT GOALS FROM YOUR STRATEGY

Now that you know the needs and requirements, you need to aspire to meet them. Hence, list out some goals for your team.

The Bold Ones

Nope, not just the highlighted ones; I mean the goals that are audacious and strong in their spirits. You need to have one or two of these in order to keep your staff motivated. These include, doubling up the size of your event as compared to the previous year, inviting an influential celebrity, getting mainstream media to cover your event, etcetera. More of these may work negatively for you, as you may be exhausting your resources and asking for way too much.

The SMART Ones

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound – that’s what SMART stands for. Of course, having big goals is important, but they should be SMART in order to make sure you’re not putting your team up only to fall down and hit their heads. Your strong goals could be broken down into smaller, smarter goals that the team finds easier to tackle.

Milestones

Set up milestones and break down your goals according to a time frame to keep track of your progress. If there’s no progress, adopting this method will let you know when there should be a course correction.

V.THE FINAL PLAN

Once you’re done analyzing, strategizing, chalking out your goals, you need to have the final plan ready, which is basically the last step in the process before you actually start with the execution. For this, you need to consider three following factors:

Resources

The skillsets of your staff, whether you need more staff, or the existing staff needs more training, whether a new technology can be used, or content management system needs to be updated – these are all resources that are going to help you put your ideas into execution. Make sure you answer these questions before you start off.

Tactics for Growth

What are the ideas or tactics that people are suggesting that can bring about growth? These can include outsourcing, trying out a new technology, building a new website, a cool new campaign idea, and other related inputs. Sit together with your team, brainstorm, and list out these ideas to implement in the next event.

Improved Processes

Remember noting down your successes and mistakes in this event? Go through them and figure out if there are certain activities or processes that are responsible for whatever has gone awry, and modify them. Think about other workflows that can replace these and guarantee betterment.

VI. CONCLUSION

After almost two thousand words of strategy and planning and improving, it’s only fair if you’ve forgotten exactly why you were reading this. So, in conclusion, I’ll remind you why evaluation is necessary for your event. And for the same, I’ll quote James A Belasco – “Evaluate what you want–because what gets measured, gets produced.”

The post EV-ALUATION-ENT appeared first on Yapsody.

SPEAKERS CROWDSOURCING PLATFORM

Having attendees vote for their favorite speakers isn’t an entirely new trend, and has been adopted by many event organizers on existing platforms. But, a dedicated platform to crowdsource speakers remains absent (to the best of my knowledge, that is). Event organizers would love a platform where the registered attendees could vote for their favorite speakers.

COLLABORATIVE PLANNING

Many event planners have used Facebook apps for involving attendees while planning events, but they have usually been informal ones. The existence of a system where event planners could use a range of tools for involving attendees in planning their event would solve many hassles. With Facebook polls and the debuting Twitter polls, asking for yes or no opinions is easy, but voting, venue hunting, setting the event ticket price, project management, and sponsor sourcing could all be pooled together on one single platform dedicated to collaborative planning.

VIP CHECK IN NOTIFICATION

Being an event presenter, you might be well aware of what it means when a VIP checks in or registers for your event. Having an influential person attending your event could alter your registration process, and also send out a message to your social media management team to get in touch with them online. Probably depending upon their social/online presence and followers, one could single out VIPs from the list of attendees.

EVENT SPECIFIC SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

Yes, the internet is flooded with tools to monitor Facebook and Twitter. And that’s the problem. Event presenters are not selling products, they’re offering services. They want to know if they’ve created an impact, and provided a good experience to their attendees – ALL IN ONE PLACE. Social media tools that can be used by event managers to improve the experience they’re offering would be different from the usual marketing tools, and this needs to be addressed.

Lastly, there is a possibility I might have missed out on other real problems that can be solved by young entrepreneurial minds. On the other hand, the issues I’ve mentioned above may have already been addressed by applications, systems, or tools that I’m not aware of. In either case, please drop in a comment to enlighten me (and others like me), because you may just be saving a presenter from a lot of hassles.

The post Startup Ideas For The Event Industry appeared first on Yapsody.

1. You no longer have to ask your followers to “like or retweet”, and then count what beats what, because Twitter polls are native.
2. Your question has to be one that receives snappy responses because it will only have a life-span of 24 hours.
3. You, or anyone for that matter, can’t see individual responses. This kind of privacy will ensure maximum participation from users.
4. After the poll is finished, the aggregate results will be shared publicly.

Yes, the feature is not available to all users yet (and nobody knows when exactly that’s going to happen), so you can keep checking back regularly.

Being an event organizer, though, do you think you could use it to your advantage? If yes, how? Let us answer that for you!

1. Where do I host the event?

This can be a very tricky decision to make, especially when the wrong venue could mean that people can’t (or won’t) attend at all. If you’re stuck between two extremely close choices and are not able to weigh the pros and cons, why not ask your followers (who might as well be your potential attendees) to choose?

2. When do I host it?

Just like choosing a venue, choosing the right date can be quite a task. You may accidentally choose a date that’s a holiday you don’t celebrate or one that clashes with another event that your potential attendees are going to attend. So, if you have two dates in mind, put them up for a poll and let the crowds decide what would be a great day to attend your event.

3. What should it be about?

When customers feel a kind of ownership over a product/service, they’re most likely to buy it. If you let them choose between the two topics you’ve shortlisted to base your event on, your ticket sales are most likely to boost up. And, of course, they’ll enjoy the event more when the agenda will be based on their interest completely (or so you make them believe)!

4. What would be the theme?

Any theme – ranging from a fancy dress party to a charity ball – adds sparkle to your event and makes it more appealing against competitive events. Even though you have a wide range of themes to choose from, once you’re left with two diametrically opposite themes or two extremely similar ones, it’s going to be difficult to figure out which one will appeal to your target audience more. What better way to find out than ask them?

5. Can I use it to figure out the market?

Of course, you can. You can ask if people would pay a certain amount to attend an event based on a certain topic/theme, or for an existing event, you could ask if they’d want to buy VIP event ticket or a new ticket type. You can only have this as one data-point in your research, but it’ll definitely provide a fine insight.

6. Woohoo! A competition!

Instead of breaking your head, trying to figure out two choices to put up for the polls, you could begin with 6 bands or musicians and then invite their fans to vote for the ones that should perform at your event. The winner of each poll will then be put up against another winner, and this will continue until there is a final showdown between the finalists.

7. Create topics for Discussion

If you’re running out of good topics that can be used to create promotional blog posts or as discussion points on the day of your event, you could have a question up, like – Is Twitter an extremely effective tool for event organizers? And you could use the response as a base for topics of discussion or blog posts.

8. Get a Feedback before you get your Instant Noodles

Yes, it’s going to be that quick. You could use Twitter polls during the event to ask your audience whether they agree with the point(s) a speaker is making, or whether the food is delicious!

9. Get to know your audience

Before you start a discussion, you could ask your audience certain questions related to the discussion that would help you give a more meaningful direction to it. For example, if you’re going to discuss social media marketing, you could ask people if they think word-of-mouth is still better than social media as a marketing tool.

10. Or, simply have some fun!

It’s a new feature, and everybody is going to have some fun with it. Even you could do that by asking random questions to your followers, like, is Messi better than Ronaldo, or would they choose peanut butter over cheese, and so on. This will help you to build a rapport with your potential attendees and get you closer to them.

Of course, Twitter has a thing for restrictions, be it the 140 character limit or only two-option polls. Nevertheless, it has always offered promotional benefits to event organizers, and it will continue to do so!

The post Can You Use Twitter Polls For Your Event? appeared first on Yapsody.

Neither Yours, Nor Mine

Negotiation skills are the primary traits of a good manager, be it sales, finance, or marketing. You don’t just have to keep the ball in your court; you also have to make sure the person on the other side is happy with the ball being in your court. Though it sounds tough, just keep this in mind – as long as you know how to keep the other person happy, you can have as many balls in your court. Don’t play the game, play the man.

Just a few Dollars Here and There

Unless this is the last event of your life, you have to keep an eye focused on the budget. Of course, cost cutting is important, but it has to be done in the right way. If you mention a platypus and give a duck, it’s acceptable. But, a chicken would be too much.

Do NOT forget about The Price Tag

Quite contrary to what Jessie J might feel, you have to decide upon just the right pricing strategy to sell your event tickets, which can indeed be very tricky. Go through the strategies of some of the previous successful events, and look at how much you’re offering to the attendees. A lot for a little will make you look greedy, and a little for a lot will make your event underrated.

Where is it?

This is something people are going to base their decisions on. Just walking into a venue and deciding upon it because of ‘weird positive vibes’ would be foolishness, even if it’s a place related to your childhood and has priceless memories attached to it (gee, it’s not your wedding! Even if it is, that’s not the best idea). Create a checklist with all your requirements for the venue before you start hunting, and choose the one the scores the most! Also, read the venue contracts carefully before investing (I give the credits to this post-script to the multiple insurance advertisements. Thank you, guys!).

Free Food? I’m in!

Except, it’s not going to be free, right? You’re going to charge your attendees for every service you’re providing at the event, so you’ll have to make sure the services are worth paying for. A happy stomach leads to a happy heart, so if your caterers can’t deliver that, you’re putting a great deal at stake.

This is when You come to Us

Finding the right event ticketing software can be a big pain, because most of the time the ones that are easy-to-use aren’t professional, and the ones that are professional are too complicated. Have no fear, Yapsody is here (alright, that sucks, but you get the point)! Our UI is easy, reliable, packed with features and downright professional. Plus, General Admission events are absolutely FREE! If you wish to get the best of both worlds, Yapsody is your thing.

Because Memories are Priceless

The future of your company depends upon the memories your event gives not just to the attendees, but also to everyone else involved – the sponsors, the speakers, the organizers, the partners – everyone! Their positive feedback is going to reflect on your status in the market, so make sure you’re giving them good reasons to ensure a positive feedback. Right from the beginning to the end, and even after that, you have to keep working to make sure your event was memorable.

The post Event Planning And Management Tips for Events and Startups appeared first on Yapsody.

For all event organizers, rookies or oldies, social media marketing is the one shot they HAVE to take. Come on, who doesn’t put up their upcoming event on Facebook? It’s the most obvious thing to do when you think of social media marketing. And that’s exactly why it’s a problem – it’s too obvious, which means, everyone else is doing it. If you have to ace this marketing strategy for your event, you have to upturn every little pebble you spot, and the least we can do is show you where the pebbles are. Now, that’s exactly where THE checklist comes into picture.

WHY PREPARING HAS THE ‘PRE’ – THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU START PLANNING

• Chalk out a timeline for all announcements and promotions related to the event.
• Come up with pictures and videos that back up your event across the social media.
• Create pages for your event on Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Try to get yourself listed on well-known listings websites or directories.
• Set up offers by claiming a location on Foursquare.
• Have a separate team to manage social media marketing, and that alone.
• Get a photographer – yes, he (or she) is a must have.

…AND SOME SPECIFICS FOR THE PREP STUFF

1.     FACEBOOK

• *these many* posts in a day
• *these many* pictures and videos (trolls, memes, bit strips, comics, info graphics, short videos)
• *these many* paid promotional posts in a day
• Create an event or group or participate in one.

2.     TWITTER

• *these many* tweets in a day – have a different count for personal tweets, partner tweets and the promoted ones.
• Create an event list comprising of all keynote speakers, partners, and attendees.
• Create a list of competitors to be monitored.

3.     GOOGLE+

• *these many* posts in a day

4.     LINKEDIN

• *these many* posts in a day
• Be a part of LinkedIn conversations that bear relevance to your event.

5.     PINTEREST

• Build a board based on the theme of your event.
• Pin *these many* images to your board in a week.
• Create a contest on Pinterest for your event’s blog.
• *these many* blog posts and info graphics in a week

6.     BLOG

• *these many* blog posts in a week
• *these many* info graphics in a week

And once you’re done pre-paring, you need to throw the bait and reel in the fish. Translation: you need to gather event-specific content to put up on your social media profiles. This includes interviewing and gathering feedback from your attendees, speakers, customers, sponsors, and people who have inspired the event in any little way, and all this is supposed to be done DURING THE EVENT.

For FACEBOOK, continue doing the mentioned tasks and also keep posting event photos. On TWITTER and GOOGLE+, you might want to

• Monitor how well your hashtags have been doing, and the number of times your event has been mentioned.
• Urge employees and attendees to spread the word by tweeting about the event and most importantly, using the hashtag.
• Appreciate the responses by retweeting and replying.
• Organize Hangouts on Google+ to communicate better.

As for the BLOG, try live blogging and report the on-goings of your event as they happen.

Once you’re done with the event, make sure you don’t kill the spirit right away. You need to retain your attendees by showing them that attending the event was worth whatever it took. And this is right how you do it –

• Check out how well your content is doing online – YouTube, Instagram, Flickr, and all other places that hold visual content related to the event.
• Try www.hashtracking.com to keep a tab on the buzz you’ve created.
• Try www.storify.com to make a collab of your best tweets.
• Have a final blog as a parting shot about the event.
• *these many* blog posts based on individual experiences
• Accept and appreciate feedbacks, follow-up on attendees, organizers, keynotes, sponsors, and everyone else who made the event happen and thank them.

Because, all is well that ends well!

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WORK OUT THE SOCIAL MEDIA

When it comes to the internet, even the sky isn’t a limit. Social media is a superlatively effective and cheap medium for event promotion and marketing. You first need to be well aware of the social media hubs of your target audience. While Facebook is used virtually by everyone, Google+ and Twitter are places you’ll find most professionals. Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest are places you should resort to if you wish to create a rather colorful buzz. You don’t have to keep desperately trying to sell your event using social media; you just need to keep them engaged and entertained so that they feel connected to your event and your sales will build up on their own. Yapsody provides you with a social media integration tool so that you can easily broadcast your event over various platforms. Also, don’t forget to have a crisp #hashtag for your event!

USE ONLINE TICKETING

Everything that’s online is a buzz, they say. For event organizers who seek to reach out to a large audience, online ticketing is a must. Today, nobody would want to go down physically to vendors or offices to book tickets when you can give them the liberty to buy event tickets while answering the nature’s call (which is a pretty relaxed state to make transactions, by the way). Yapsody is home to a wide range of features that make online ticketing look like a cakewalk to you – the Online Ticket Store, customizable e-tickets, Yapsody mobile and iPad apps only posing as little cherries on the top.

METHODS OF PAYMENT

Customers today feel that it’s almost rude to ask for cash when it comes to payment. And that is only fair, considering how easy and secure the other payment methods are. Make sure the transactions related to your events offer payment gateways that are generally preferred by your target audience. Digitized payment methods ensure that even you don’t lose out on records when it comes to ticket sales and other transactions.

DATA ANALYSIS

This basically involves everything – EVERYTHING – your sales, the requirements of your attendees, channeling your existing data, and everything else that comes to your mind. For your social media management, you can use free tools like Facebook Insights and Google Analytics instead of toggling between your documents. Also, if you’re using Yapsody for your event, we provide you with reports that help you keep track of your statistics, sales, tax reconciliation and so on. As far as channeling your existing data is concerned, we allow you to import your professional mailing list into your MailChimp contact list using our free integration tool.

Technology is only as efficient as the person who’s using it is. Quoting Steve Jobs here, “Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.”

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