Event Management & Data

How to Promote Your Online Event on Social Media

Victoria Rudi
April 21, 2020

Table of Contents

Create carousel posts for Instagram. Make yourself a TikTok account and start experimenting with it. Create content on LinkedIn and post daily (including weekends). Is your head spinning yet? There are many social media tips and so many platforms to be active on, create content for, and access on a daily basis.

No wonder you feel overwhelmed. But if you don’t know where to start, don’t worry. You’re not alone. As a matter of fact, according to the SproutSocial 2019 Index, “Despite the potential of social, marketers still struggle to fully embrace its effectiveness. Forty-seven percent of marketers say developing social strategies that support overall business goals is their number one challenge. And 22% of marketing leaders worry their brand’s social strategy is ineffective.”

Regardless of our goals, we all struggle with social media. But people expect brands to be social. As another SproutSocial research indicates, “When asked which communication channels give brands the best opportunity to connect with their customers, survey respondents ranked social media as number one.”

So even if you don’t like it or understand it, you’ll still want to learn how to take advantage of social media and use it to build an audience, connect with them, and subsequently promote your online events. And although there aren’t any miraculous tips that will grow your social media, we’ve put together a few relevant tips that will get you results:

Tip #1. Put the “social” back into  social media

apple-applications-apps-cell-phone-607812

You don’t want to be on social media just to push your advertisement, offers, or online event announcements. Nobody will care about you or your brand if you don’t build a connection first. How can you do that? Let’s take LinkedIn, for example.

The first thing you’ll want to do is to identify your target group and industry hashtags. Then, start engaging with people’s content. That’s right—your content alone, regardless of how good it is, won’t do much if you don’t contribute to people’s posts with thoughtful comments and ideas.

We suggest having an engagement calendar and trying to connect with people on a daily basis. Leave at least five to ten relevant comments every day, get to know professionals, build conversations with them, and start connecting. This is a small, yet important step to build a real social media presence that will later help you promote your online event.

Tip #2. Ditch your company’s profile and go personal

One important thing to remember: Before you start engaging with other people’s content, post these comments from a personal profile. Avoid using your company’s profile, as it could come off weird and impersonal.

People want to build connections with other people, not faceless brands. According to SproutSocial, “Real people are the key to authentic relationships. Consumers want to learn more about the people behind their favourite brands.” So instead of engaging from your business’ profile, choose employee advocacy and develop a holistic brand social media campaign.

Tip #3. Develop your social personality

The same way you design a brand personality for your website copy and content, you need to create your social personality that will help your team adopt one narrative and voice. As SocialSprout notes, “Brand personality is what connects your product to its consumers. It reflects what your brand stands for and should be the bloodline that runs through all of your marketing and creative initiatives.”

For example, the same report indicates that 88% of consumers are annoyed when brands mock their fans. In addition, three in four consumers appreciate humor from brands. To develop your social personality, go back to your brand identity book and identify those elements that make your company unique. Maybe you have a quirky sense of humor, or are highly inspirational and enthusiastic. All these elements should be found in your social media narrative and give you a strong social personality. 

Tip #4. Create valuable content daily

As you could guess from the previous tips, we recommend using  social media on a daily basis, not just when you need to promote your online event. You need to start marketing your conference, product launch, or workshop weeks before the registration page launches. And you can do that by following the tips above and creating meaningful content on a daily basis.

Anything that makes your audience feel a little bit better is considered meaningful or valuable content. It can be inspirational or funny content, or an interesting story people can identify with. Moreover, you can use this platform to educate your audience and help them overcome specific challenges by providing them actionable content. Anything will do, as long as it’s laser-focused on what your online audience wants and needs. That will give you the best chance of running a successful online event promotion campaign on social media. 

Tip #5. Experiment with different content formats 

Posting a cute photo with a quick text won’t do anymore. People are looking for different content formats, so give your audience what they want. For example, you can experiment with Instagram carousels  and then repurpose them by publishing on LinkedIn, too. If you don’t know how to create a carousel, you should definitely check this Instagram carouselmade by Chris Do.

It explains perfectly how you, too, can design awesome carousels. Video is another key content format you’ll want to experiment with. You can post short videos providing useful information or that simply entertain your online audience. You can also schedule interesting interviews with potential speakers or run live Q&As. The possibilities are endless, and the best thing about videos is that you don’t need professional equipment to shoot them—a smartphone is enough.

Key takeaways

If there’s one thing to take away from this article, it’s the importance of starting using social media long before promoting your online event. Marketing your online event on social media will only be successful only if you build a relationship with your audience, creating meaningful content on a daily basis, and be as personal as possible when sharing your brand’s values and mission.

Discover how Eventtia helps world-leading brands digitize and scale their events

Learn more

Discover how Eventtia helps world-leading brands digitize and scale their events

Victoria Rudi
Senior Content Specialist
With a Master’s degree in Event Management and a keen follower of SaaS technologies, Victoria is an event content master, producing insightful and valuable for Eventtia’s blog and beyond

All-in-one event management software