This is an archived blog from when I ran Conscious Public Relations Inc. from 2008-2018. Excuse the potential outdated-ness!
The use of social media during events
Since we were the social team for a week-long conference last week, I thought this would be a good chance to see how effective social media was for the attendees.
We noticed after the second day that we were getting some engagement from people outside the room and that followers were steadily growing, but since there were some very powerful and accomplished people in attendance (though not all of them where on social media), we reminded them at the start of Day 3 to engage with us.
The result was increased engagement, but also some retweets from some powerful people! It’s quite amazing what you can do with just a gentle reminder.
The first tip I have is simply to engage with the organization whose event you’re attending. I’ve heard a few times that when you attend a networking event, you should always meet the organizer as he/she usually knows most people in the room, and it can benefit you to know who you should meet. The same goes for social – prior to the event, follow the organization and see if there is a hashtag they want you to use.
Last week we had the hashtag pretty much copied on both our desktops and social so that it was mentioned in all of our posts. We were also checking Twitter, G+ and Facebook constantly to see if others were using it and didn’t tag us, so we could share their content. Most people were pretty good in tagging the organization, but there were a few hashtag mentions that deserved a retweet or re-share. It’s like digging for digital treasure!
In revisiting a post that our Coordinator did last year on hashtags, we accomplished 2 of 3 of the tips: We used the hashtag early, and kept using it in other posts, even if the event hadn’t yet arrived. The one thing that would have been beneficial was displaying the Tagboard we had created, which pulled all posts from the 3 networks using the hashtag (like a Twitter feed would). Some of the attendees found this useful, but having it projected would have been a good reminder to them to keep sharing on social throughout the week.
Do you have any other tips on using social media during or before events to increase your own engagement?
