5 ways to slash your event marketing expenses via social media!

That social media is critical for event marketing hardly bears repeating any more. In fact, when we saw that nearly 60% of event organisers already use social media to promote their events (http://goo.gl/NsaoRK), the only question was, what’s the other 40% thinking!?

Social media is still a low-cost, high ROI option, but it’s no longer “free”, as it was once thought to be. Media buy has become a critical component of social media success, and the importance of design, influencers, and other things that cost has grown quite a bit.

However, with a bit of ingenuity, the event marketing budget can be stretched quite a bit. Here are five of our favourite ideas.

1. Be selective – Not all platforms are great for all events. Some aren’t great for ANY events. Pick the ones that YOUR audience prefers. Think, do you really need a Pinterest profile for your corporate event? Fewer channels allow you to focus more on the ones you have, and make the most of them.
2. Crowdsource content – Social media without content is like a wrapper without the candy inside. Problem is, creating content takes time, and precious budget. Instead, use your event app to gamify aspects of your event for content like photos, blogs etc, and use them on your social channels. Not only is user-created content free, it often has an authenticity which is crucial in event marketing.
3. Repurpose content – Creating fresh content is time consuming and expensive. Instead of that, repurpose a single piece of content on not only multiple social channels, but also multiple times on the same social channel. For example, a small interview with a speaker can be broken into small soundbites and each posted as “tip of the day”. Similarly, a popular blog post can be promoted every other week with a different headline every time.
4. Just ask – Ask your speakers, exhibitors and trainers to give a small shout-out about the event on their social channels. It’s amazing how many of them would be ok to do it for free and do it more than once. After all, the success of an event they are speaking at, is critical for them as well.
5. Social media surveys – Audience feedback is critical for any event. However, people are rarely totally honest on feedback forms, especially after the event is over. Tap into the event hashtag and your social feed – the real unfiltered feedback is right there, and you didn’t even have to print out a single form!