Writing for whom and what

The foremost thing before writing a blog is to figure out what and for whom you are going to write. Know your target audience and what they seek for. Keep their interest in mind while writing. Your blog can be solution-based; tweak the blog in such a way that you are answering their queries but it must not end up like a ‘Question-Answer’ round. It can talk about the nature of event, what the audience can expect, or facilities they will get. The blog can also be about some great newsworthy happenings relevant to your event, and interviews with performers or speakers.

Catchy Headline

In the content game, headline is the most integral part. Readers set their eyes first on the headline and if it succeeds in grabbing the eye-balls, they proceed to the body of the blog. So, having a catchy headline for your event blog is a must. It should suggest what the blog is all about.

Body Construction

Proceeding further from headline, the body of your blog should be well-structured with proper sub-heading and text. It should answer who, what, why, when, where, and how.

To separate your paragraphs, and make it more organised and clear, use sub-headings. Even a 300 words blog would appear lengthy if there’s no sub-heading to break the paragraphs. Also, it would make it easy to read. Use important points of each paragraph to create sub-heading.

Featured images, videos or graphics go a long way in making the blog appealing.

Maintain a friendly and conversational tone.

Include a call to action link in some of your blogs for people to register for the event or link to event ticketing system. On clicking the link, it should take to the registration page.

Make your blog tweetable by including a 140 character engaging sentence or quotes for readers to share on Twitter.

How Long it should be

Nobody has time to read a lengthy content. Even if the blog looks interesting, on seeing its length, it will kill the interest of any reader. Keep the blog word count between 500 and 600. It should be short but informative.

Making it Shareable

Make your blog shareable by including social share button at the end of your write-up. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest, use all the popular ones to get your blog shared.

The post Five Fascinating Ideas for Effective Event Blog Posts appeared first on Yapsody.

PERSONALIZED DIGITAL MARKETING

After you’ve spent the past few hours browsing evening gowns on online stores, all websites you visit next will have advertisements showcasing discounts on evening gowns at various websites. Co-incidence? Nah! Personalized digital marketing.

As an event presenter, you could also segment your customers based on their past experiences with you or their preferences. Simple things like including their names in the subject lines of email newsletters, or greeting them with a “Welcome Back!” if they’re visiting your page for the second time, these things create a lasting impression and you’re bound to get higher conversion rates.

SIMPLIFIED METRICS

Event presenters practically breathe data and analytics to measure their progress, and to ensure their ways are working. The budget, revenue generated from selling event ticket, attendee reports, and engagement analytics are some of the many figures that are always buzzing at the back of your head. Data collection is not a big task, analyzing and utilizing it is. If you have an event at Yapsody, you can use YapStats to get all the numbers related to your event integrated into a single app, so that analyzing it in a single glance doesn’t sound like an overstatement.

SEEING BEYOND “ASL”

Ever logged on to a stranger chatting website and talked to someone? There are very few people who’d actually be interested in your name or your hobbies, or even greeting you for that matter. The first question they ask you would be – ASL? (short for age, sex, location). It is obviously very cold and unwelcoming, and makes you want to disconnect the very next moment.

This is a common mistake that event organizers need to accept and move on from. Grouping customers based on demographics is NOT in trend now. Every attendee wants to be acknowledged by his identity, his personal interests and goals, and not just a number. Add some personal touch to the way you invite your potential attendees, the way you communicate with them and consider their ideals. This will add definite value to your event as well as your organization.

BEING ‘RESPONSIVE’

While it definitely implies responding to your attendees in as little time as possible, the tech-savvy generation is familiar with the pun attached to the term. Your online content is supposed to be responsive, i.e. it should look good on any device that your attendees may use. Event websites, emails, networking platform, speaker profiles – all should be optimized for viewing on the big as well as small screens. Because the world today is way smarter, ensure that online content pertaining to your event is optimized for smartphones and tabs of all kinds.

USING WORD-OF-MOUTH SERIOUSLY

“But… I’ve always been serious about that!”

Of course, you have. But, there’s always scope for betterment, isn’t it?

Word-of-mouth is the BEST (no amount of bolding, italicizing, or underlining could stress on just how important it is) marketing tool. It is organic, and cannot be faked, but you have to roll out referral programs to actually get it going. When attendees are given the opportunity to earn rewards for simply referring the event to their friends or colleagues, you’re turning them into brand ambassadors. The more brand ambassadors you successfully enable, the more you’re going to be promoted.

DEVOUR TECHNOLOGY

Yes, eat it up till you’re satiated! Almost every task can be automated to save time and increase efficiency. Event managers who are too far ahead in the technical marathon even use drones to capture images that professional photographers are unable to. Further, there are innumerable apps that do most of the updating and calculating business for you without you putting in anything except your login details. Find out technological developments in the event industry and make complete use of them.

SKIP THE SPREADSHEETS

Spreadsheets are huge necessities, and give just as huge headaches when they are color-coded, complex, and multi-tabbed. Maybe you can never entirely get rid of them, but you can definitely skip the part where you have to manually edit them. There are apps that automatically update your list of registrations and separate out attendees based on whether they’ve paid or no, or are returning customers, and many other filters.

OUTSOURCING

Now that we’re talking about getting everything done ‘automatically’, let’s talk about the humans who fill in for these robots that you fancy – freelancers. Often, deadlines aren’t met because a few things were left hanging and weren’t achieved on time, be it a promotional video, or a logo for the event, or a simple blog post. With websites like Fiverr and Taskrabbit, you can get a list of people who’d do these little jobs for you for as less as $5, hence relieving you of the stress that these little pesky pests bring with them.

In conclusion, all the above points focus on one primary thing – personalization. The event organizers who look into the depths of the needs and requirements of their target audience, and try to relate with them on a personal level often find the best solutions and strategies to make things work in their favor. Your ultimate goal should be to create an unforgettable experience that touches the lives of your attendees. Anything that distracts you from this goal can be outsourced.

The post Innovative Event Organizing Measures appeared first on Yapsody.

So, here are the top 5 social media marketing tips that will ALWAYS work for you:

1. Click-n-Tag: Taking pictures at happening events and tagging people in them will boost your brand’s popularity amongst your target audience. Go out, discover new events, and if there is a necessity, hire a professional photographer to click these pictures that you can later upload on your event page and tag people in them.
2. Share: Every one of your posts on your blog/website should have share buttons that let your readers and visitors share these posts across all social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc.)
3. Hashtags and Shoutouts: These work really well on Twitter. You can trade shoutouts with other influential brands and people, so that their followers get introduced to you, and you introduce your followers to them as well. Also, create a unique and crisp hashtag (that is easy to remember) for your event, and use it EVERYWHERE.
4. Find Out: There are various sources from where people can find out about your event, and you have to be well aware of these “sources”. Find out the event listing websites that list out local and/or national events and also other people and groups who might be responsible for spreading the word.
5. Partners: Your sponsors, partners, guest speakers, and team members can work wonders if you turn them into your event’s ambassadors. Ask them to blog, tweet, and post about your event online, and in return, you can even offer them incentives to do the same.

The event industry has always been a competitive one, and social media marketing is used by almost every event presenter out there. So, it isn’t predictable whether your strategy will work in exactly the way you thought it would, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying. While you continue employing the basic measures for online promotion, keep experimenting with new techniques and keep a tab on what does and doesn’t work for the audience you’re targeting.

The post The Social Media Strategy for Event Promotion appeared first on Yapsody.