How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan Around an Event

Social media can be a crucial avenue for promoting an event.

If you are holding an event and need to get the word out, Internet social media is an indispensable marketing tool that you will need to use to your advantage. Social media should be used in addition to advertising on local radio stations and in local newspapers. Depending on the scale of your event, you can use social media websites to reach not only locals, but also those beyond the local landscape and attract potential attendees from throughout the United States.

Instructions

1. Start early. Unlike a social media marketing plan for a product, selling an event is, by its very nature, time sensitive. You want to be sure that you've built enough buzz by the day of the event, and building buzz takes time.

2. Create a website for your event. Include elements like a countdown, schedule and -- if applicable -- convenient links to purchase tickets. Update the website with news frequently so that the information does not become stale; make sure there is continually something new to be said about the event. Be sure that the website can easily be shared, liked or tweeted about by adding buttons that allow visitors to communicate about your website with a single click on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

3. Start a blog dedicated to spreading news about your event, and make sure it is linked to your website. Have different writers contribute to the blog; this communicates to the reader that many people are interested in and excited about the event. As with your main website, add like, share or tweet buttons that allow readers to easily communicate through social media.

4. Communicate directly about your event on social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Consider making a page for your event on Facebook as well, and post updates frequently. The more people who are friends or followers of your page, the more people you will reach in news feeds every time you or someone else posts on the page.

5. Approach the owners of websites and blogs related to your event and ask them to blog or report about it. If you are hosting a marathon, reach out to blogs and websites dedicated to running; if you are putting on a music festival, communicate with websites and blogs dedicated to music.

6. Continue to blog and post about your event while it is happening, especially if this is an event that will be happening annually or periodically. Setting up a live stream via your event website or posting constant updates about the progress of the event keeps those who couldn't be there in the loop and shows them what they're missing; they may be more likely to attend next year.

Tips & Warnings

• Be sure to keep attendees happy during the event; otherwise, they may complain via social media websites, and this is negative advertising you don't want.

• According to social media marketing pro Nadja Specht, you may wish to consider hiring professional help to conduct your social media advertising campaign if you have no experience with social media marketing and have neither the time nor desire to learn.

References

• Purchase.com: How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan
• Mashables: How to Plan and Promote Events with Social Media