Gone are the days when an event professional could ignore social media. Whether you are a photo booth owner, DJ, photographer, or videographer, a good social strategy can take your brand to new heights and get those leads coming. This guide will walk you through top platforms and how to craft engaging content that resonates with your target audience.
So many social media outlets can be overwhelming on their own. The event professional should pay attention to where their key audience hangs out most of the time. Here are a few options for top social media strategies for the event professional:
Instagram: Key for any event highlights, Instagram is an ideal way to target millennials. There are Stories, Reels, and polls that have become baseline tools for engagement -- without which the event industry would be incomplete.
TikTok: TikTok caters to short-form video content and therefore, is great for engaging the Gen Z crowd. The ability to geotag and pinpoint your audience based on location makes it a powerful tool in event pros' hands, and essential when applying an effective social media strategy.
Pinterest: A visual search engine, Pinterest is a must for wedding photographers and planners. It's a brilliant place to display your portfolio and woo potential clients by inspiring them with new content. This will further boost your social media strategies.
Facebook: Older, but still useful for building up local communities through groups. If you are an event professional working with corporate or older clients, Facebook remains a worthy competitor in the social media strategy.
LinkedIn: For a B2B focus—especially toward corporate clients—LinkedIn is by far one of the more powerful platforms in establishing your brand as a leader in the event industry. Including this in your social media strategy can help you find business professionals and grow your corporate clientele.
At its core, social media is about engagement. Here is a set of tried-and-true social strategies for event professionals that will ensure stronger engagement:
Use Call To Actions (CTAs): Whether that's a question asked in your caption or a poll set up, CTAs urge the interaction. Post images from the event with various edits, asking, "Which version do you like?" That simple move can upgrade your social media strategies by encouraging direct engagement.
Repurpose Content: Save time by repurposing across platforms. Tools like Later.com allow the scheduling of posts across Instagram, TikTok, and more to make your social media strategies more efficient.
Interact With Other Accounts: It's not all about you posting; it's building relations with your social media. Comment and like posts made by other local businesses and prospective clients. This increases visibility and is vital for overall engagement.
Understanding your audience is the big draw for effective social media strategies among professional events. For example, if you target weddings, you should focus on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. If you are targeting business clients, LinkedIn and Facebook are probably better.
Behind-the-scenes content offers a glimpse into your work process and builds trust, making it an essential part of your social media strategy for event professionals. Capture moments from event setup to execution to create engaging content. Testimonials, whether in video or text format, also add credibility and should be prominently featured across your social media platforms.
Engagement must be high, but most of all, the metrics that matter are for the business. Utilize analytics tools within each platform, and really understand where the performance is. Maybe even implement a section into your intake forms with a question like "how did you hear about us?" in order to know which platforms are driving the best leads for your business. These metrics are vital in refining your social media strategy for event professionals.
Which social media platform is best for events professionals? It pretty much depends on who you are trying to target. Examples: Instagram and TikTok do better for millennials and Gen Z, whereas LinkedIn and Facebook do better in relation to corporate clients. The use of these platforms within your social media strategy will target the correct people.
How do I increase engagement for my posts on social media? Add in call-to-actions such as questions, polls that might interest the audience to comment on, and interact with other accounts while building a robust presence on social media.
Can I manage multiple platforms efficiently? Yes! Tools like Later.com will let you schedule and even repurpose content across all platforms, so you can work smarter -- not harder -- on your social media strategies for event professionals.
Successful social media strategies mastered by the event professional are about choosing the right platforms, engaging your audience, and always slightly tweaking your approach. These strategies help you turn social media into a powerful business growth tool.
Ready to take your social game up a notch in professional event marketing? Go ahead and download our full guide to marketing for an event-based business. We are going to cover everything from email marketing to social media and give you all the tools you could ever need.