Now that people spend over one quarter of their online time on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, these sites have become the best way to promote your events. By diving into these networks, you’ll be visible on the sites that people visit the most.
Once you have your event page ready, you can easily share it on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites that encourage users to share it with their friends and followers.
• Facebook – Everyone knows that millions of people are on Facebook everyday, but the number of brands on Facebook is quickly catching up! When you create an event listing with all of your information and a link to a page where visitors can buy tickets, you’re already able to directly interact with your ticket buyers. An official Facebook Page for your brand, however, can keep the discussion going even after the event: ask questions to your audience; add photos leading up to and during the event; and encourage people to share your event with their friends.
• Twitter – Hashtag yourself! Create a simple, catchy hashtag for people to use when they tweet about your event—remember to leave out the spaces! With Twitter’s search engine (or free apps like TweetDeck and HootSuite), you can easily see how often people are using your hashtag and respond to them with special offers and other comments.
• Incentix – Communicating on social media from your company is one thing, but what if you could get ticket buyers to talk about you, too? ShowClix’s social media marketing with Incentix offers discounts to people who tweet about or share their ticket purchases with their online connections. Since each person on the primary social networking sites has an average of 220 connections, these shares can multiply the number of people who hear about your event. With these instant incentives, you’ll motivate your ticket buyers to share your events with their friends and connections on social media.
• Eventful, etc. – Websites like Eventful and Yahoo! Upcoming allow you to add your event to local listings, which means that your events are visible whenever people search for local hap’s and fun events! Additionally, these sites make sharing events as easy as possible with personal event calendars and social media buttons. It certainly doesn’t hurt to get your event out there as much as possible!
• City event blogs – You probably check out your local alternative weekly for concert listings, but you may want to start checking out other places where locals look for upcoming events. Most cities have their own online event registries and message boards, and you might be surprised how many people follow these sites on a regular basis—in some cases, even more often than they’re willing to pick up a newspaper. Get in touch with the webmaster and figure out how to list your events for their audience.
• Newsletters – While not technically as Web 2.0 as social media, digital newsletters can still keep your audience connected with your company before and after your event. Create a form on your Facebook Page for visitors to sign up, and make your newsletters worthwhile with exclusive content, only available to subscribers. For example, you could feature short interview of the band or speaker who will be at the event, or you could offer a pre-sale date reserved only for those who have signed up. Don’t overdo it, though! People are sensitive about their inboxes these days, and they might resent more than a couple emails a month from your company.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this post made reference to Incentix’s connectivity with Facebook, which is no longer available because of changes to Facebook’s API.