Crazy nights out, what your friends are having for lunch or Ibiza weekends. We all use Twitter in a social context to keep in touch or comment on wider subjects. But Twitter is also proving to be a really useful tool for promoting business. With over 16 million Tweeters in the UK alone it is an amazing window through which to engage and interact with those users on not only a national level, but on a global scale.
Attracting awareness for a forthcoming event is an area where Twitter is proving valuable for, not only advertising your event but developing a community and an audience who you can interact with and supply updates.
The first thing you need to discover is Tweeters who could potentially be an audience for your event. To do this, you will need to search for the right kind of hashtags. For example, if you are organising a business networking event on funding you’ll need to look for hashtags that will help generate interest such as #business, #networking and #funding. RiteTag.com is an amazing tool for providing a list of trending hashtags on its site that you can use to take advantage of real-time marketing. It will help you find the relevant hashtags and follow the people using them. You can do this by using what is termed in the Twitter world as ‘@Mentions’. Basically, this refers to any tweet that contains your username which appears in your mentions page on the connect page. So if you mention more than one username in your Tweet, they will also see the Tweet in their mentions tabs.
This is where setting up your own unique hashtag for your event really becomes important. Don’t make it too complicated otherwise, your target audience won’t recognise it. For example #YENevent. You can also track who’s using your hashtag to talk about your event by using cool tools such as TwitterFall or TweetDeck.
Before you start Tweeting it could be useful to consider what content you wish to post. Remember people will want to receive information that is of interest. If it’s just general advertising junk that’s just going to clog up their Twitter feeds, you’re going to lose those vital followers. So make your Tweets count. If you have a new speaker lined up then get that announcement out there. Try and get conversations started with questions such as ‘who’s coming to #YENevent?’ Which will create interest and generate conversations between your followers?
Don’t forget to promote your hashtag on other promotional material. It will be a waste of all your hard work if your hashtag is missing from your event invitations, registration page, email signature strips and letters. Invite your delegates to tweet live from the event. This will further engage those attending and involve those who could not make it.
Finally, keep growing your community after the event by replying to those who attended. Continue to make use of that all important hashtag and username to share links and gain feedback.
2016 heralded a new chapter when I was introduced to the inspirational father and son team at Malik House. Nasser and Sheraz Malik are constantly coming up with new ideas and it’s been an amazing eight weeks so far! The possibilities at Yorkshire Enterprise Network are limitless and I’m thrilled to be able to put my knowledge and experience to good use in furthering the aspirations of Malik House.
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2 Responses
Marshall
Anyone else notice the ghostly face in the coffee cup?
Sarah Shaw
Short and sweet, but perfectly summarizes the importance of social media platforms like Twitter. Not a Facebook fan, but I think Instagram is another great platform for event promotion, launches, ect… Once you build up a good audience, you’re golden 🙂