• Don’t use it to Promote your Event

Now, before you raise your eyebrows at me and be all, “What the hell is this woman talking about?!” just let me get to the part where it starts making sense. If you’re going to use Twitter as a sales tool to keep ranting about the deals you’re offering and the goodies up for grabs, your followers will start falling out of the tiny interest zone you managed to create. Instead, use it as a marketing tool and give your followers more of what they want to know instead of what you want them to know. Provide infographics, links to interesting stuff related to your event or industry, sneak-peeks, pictures, and other engaging stuff to keep your followers intact. What’s better – telling a boring story and expecting people to keep joining in or collecting an audience with an engaging anecdote first and then releasing your story on the crowd?

• Get Your Ducks in a Row

It would be foolish to use your personal Twitter account to tweet to potential clients, because there are two diametrically opposite ways in which one tweets to his friends and his clients. When you’re on Twitter, have a clear idea as to what you’ll be using the account for, in order to target the kind of followers base you are looking to build. There’s nothing wrong in having separate accounts to cater to personal and professional needs, because you don’t want clients thinking that you are too casual, or your friends thinking that you’re, well, weird.

• Rome was not Built in a Day

And neither will your Twitter followers base be. I might be repeating myself, but Twitter is to be used to make people aware of your brand and industry, about what you’re all about and what you do, and not necessarily about what you’re selling. You have to be more like a teacher, and not a businessman. Also, be a little easy on the hashtags. Not every word with a ‘#’ can create a buzz just like that. Only relevant hashtags work, and you might want to check out www.hashtags.org to get some help on that front. Twitter has also provided some great information about the usage of hashtags and their significance, so it’ll be a good idea to go through it. Remember, using a lot of hashtags can make you look desperate and, worse, dumb.

The post Expert Ways To Promote Your Event On Twitter appeared first on Yapsody.

WRITE ONE TO THE RIGHT ONES

Because promoting a Broadway drama at a rock concert event is so totally working out – not! When you think about your event, think about the kind of people who would want to attend your event. Approach your existing customers because they’re undoubtedly going to be interested in your event if they’ve held on all this time. As far as new ones are concerned, target the domains where your potential audience is likely to reside i.e. put yourself up on relevant websites where interested people are bound to stumble upon your listing.

#EVENT #HASHTAG #CLICHÉ #BUTWORKS

Agreed, hashtags can be really annoying especially when all the Instagram pictures are tagged with #instalike, #instacute, #instapic, and #instacrap. But that’s what is going to earn you followers. Yes, those hashtags are positively not getting you anywhere except spam, but a short, witty and crispy hashtag will do wonders. Your event hashtag is the one thing that people connected to your event are going to use for networking before, during, and after the event. Make sure it directly relates to your event, is easy to remember, and widely used across all your social media profiles.

HAVE THE RIGHT TRACK-TICS

Creating a hashtag is like putting your sandwich in the toaster. And if you don’t keep an eye on it, it’s going to burn down to nothingness. You have to keep a track of the progress your hashtag has made, and the concerns of your attendees. You can obviously have an automatic toaster that turns off when your sandwich is crisp enough, that is, use apps like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite to keep a check on your attendees’ conversations and your hashtag. And never forget the three R’s of Twitter – Respond to their tweets, Reciprocate by liking the good ones, Retweet the interesting ones.

LET THEM BE DEMOCRITICS!

If your event is one of the audience, for the audience, and by the audience, then you’re already a big buzz. Nothing pleases them more than being offered the privilege of choosing their own topics for the event instead of being expected to attend an event they don’t even relate to. Organize polls, forums, debates, webinars – ANYTHING – to get them to choose the things they are interested to witness during the event. On top of that, your speakers will already have an idea about the kind of questions and issues that they’ll have to tackle during the event, and this would give them a brilliant head-start.

WORK THE NETWORK

If events were just meant to gather knowledge, Wikipedia wouldn’t have had an existence at all. A secondary reason (that is as good as the primary one) why people attend event is to share, to connect, to get to know other like-minded people. And if you’re given a chance to come in contact with such people even before actually meeting them at the event, the cherry on the top is so much bigger than the cake itself! Hit some really great social event websites, create communities and help potential attendees to network before the event. This will definitely add a value to your event and isn’t that exactly what a buzz is all about?

The post Effective Ways To Promote Your Event On Twitter appeared first on Yapsody.

Well, you’re not to be blamed entirely because definitely, if you haven’t been using the social media strategy to promote your events, it’s just because you aren’t well “updated” about it. Let us do the honors, in that case!

TWIT-BITS OF TWITTER MARKETING

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Twitter? Okay, the blue bird, and? Yeah, 140 characters, and? Oh, come on! If there’s one thing Twitter is so full of, it’s the hashtags! Hashtags are the most effective AND effortless means to promote your event on Twitter (and Facebook, too). All you need to do is come up with a short, witty and crisp hashtag related to your event and throw it around every tweet about your event. If your hashtag is eye-catchy, people will be using it, too, and it’ll soon be a buzz.

Let’s face it – there are very few enthusiasts around twitter who’ll just casually slip in hashtags to your event in their tweets for nothing at all. So, loosen up things on your end and offer a free entry or gift hampers to a lucky user for using your hashtags.

If the event you’re hosting is a big affair, you can level up and commit an entire Twitter account for the event, instead of hashtags. This way, you’ll have a one-stop site for everyone who wishes to know anything about the developments in your event.

Shake up your tweets every now and then! You DO get pissed, don’t you, if your mom keeps reminding you to do the same thing over and over again? Well, your followers will get annoyed, too, if you keep on announcing that your event is coming. Instead, tweet about upcoming events – sponsors, giveaways, online contests – to keep them engaged and entertained.

Lastly, it’s good to ask for retweets, as long as you don’t overdo it, because then you’ll be looked at as if you’re heavily desperate to make this work out.

THERE’S A REASON FACEBOOK HAS ‘EVENTS’ – USE IT!

Status updates and personally pinging friends on Facebook are fine, but when you’re talking about a real event and big promotion, that won’t work. Your statuses are likely to get lost in the stream of profile picture updates, vacation photos and “10 things you never knew about blah” posts. And just how many chat windows are you planning to pop-up to copy-paste-send the same message? Not only is it tedious, but it’s impersonal and has a negative impact.

What you can do is create a Facebook Page for your event, and then create a Facebook Event from that. Creating a Facebook Page has many side-benefits, like:

• You can have a “Like” button on your personal blog or website for the event.
• Anyone can be invited to the Event you create.
• You can rely on the targeted Facebook ads to reach out to non-friends or followers who might be interested in your event.

The key to social media marketing is SHARING. Whatever you do, the progress you make, keep your followers updated on Twitter and Facebook (they being the largest platforms) so that your event doesn’t seem distant to them.

EVENT-HACK FOR FACEBOOK AND TWITTER MARKETING

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