Whether event professionals choose to believe it or not, the ever-expanding world of social media is tightening its grip on the hospitality industry. The lines between personal and professional social media usage are blurring, and it is a newfound responsibility to take full advantage of this visibility.
But how exactly are planners and properties are putting this marketplace to use?
Over half of all event planners, who are looking to put serious effort into an event marketing strategy, utilize social media to engage their desired audience. This number primarily comes into play when dealing with real-time events. A personalized hashtag or snapchat filter are put into place, and both live and virtual attendees become present.
When building a social media event strategy, a vast majority of event professionals put social media to use in order to build a robust awareness of the event at hand well before it occurs. This sort of message can be given a strong continuity, and even countdown, as the date inches closer.
With such high usage across the board, it’s interesting to then learn how over half of this demographic struggle to effectively communicate their event’s message. With so many options to choose from, it is critical that planners and properties understand best practices in using multiple social tools in sync with one another. A message that comes with strong continuity and visibility across social platforms has a much greater likelihood of being a successful one.
54% of event planners use social media to relive highligts post-event.
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On the backend of a strategic event marketing plan, slightly over half of planners begin to take advantage of attendees who want to relive the recent event at hand. This recap is critical to the audience that was unable to partake in either the live or real-time virtual event. Outlets such as Facebook Live can provide this sort of replay to keep all of those initially invested, engaged.
In order to see organic online traction before and after an event takes place, it’s important to take advantage of the most popular social media outlets available.
While many event professionals produce their own content to aid in their event marketing, only 20% of this group utilize social media monitoring tools. This second-step is a key part of the equation that can lead to a more in-depth understanding of one’s online demographic.
Technologies like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are some of the leaders in this form of online brand management. Social media monitoring can help further dissect event-specific activity that a planner’s audience engages in.
Much like taking a step back and understanding the goals of an event, it is crucial for an planner to comprehend the goals of the event marketing plan at hand. While event awareness might be the one of the more obvious choices here, both planners and properties must agree on the priority of these goals.
If brand awareness is to take a front seat, perhaps the production company, not the upcoming event, receives the bulk of the spotlight across social media handles.
Whatever the decision may be, a decision between parties must be made to ensure a strong message throughout the entirety of the event marketing strategy.
Infographics created & provided by Losberger.
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