If you’re looking to leverage social media to market your event, start by defining your goals, audience, and how you’ll measure success. Here are a few key tips before getting started:
Identify Your Target Audience
Are you using social media to drive attendance or sales? To generate buzz? To attract thought leaders or media? All of the above? Before you spend time and effort promoting your event on social media, it’s important to define your audience and which channel(s) they’re on.
Consider things like demographics, geographic location, their affiliation with Wharton, and whether you have any additional intelligence like lists of website visitors or email addresses that could be used for retargeting and/or developing lookalike audiences. Also be sure to identify influencers in your midst or in the industry who can help spread the word.
Create Compelling Content
Once you’ve decided on your strategy, it’s time to get tactical. Think about what assets are currently available to you, and what action you want your audience to take. For example, if you’re selling tickets or taking reservations, you’ll want to create a direct-response campaign with a clear call to action.
As you near the event, refresh your creative and CTA with a new sense of urgency. When possible, include a high-quality photo, testimonial, or promo video. Always be sure to include your event hashtag so people on site can contribute to the discussion and those following you remotely can participate. Be sure to mention or tag Wharton’s accounts as well so it’s easier for the School to re-share.
Here are some bonus tips for photographing and live streaming your event.
Build A Measurement Framework
Despite being last on this list, you’ll want to establish your social media measurement plan upfront. Determine what a successful campaign looks like, and build an analytics framework that ladders up to your goals and attributes success back to your social media efforts. Define key performance indicators (KPIs), support metrics, benchmarks, and targets to keep focused.
Take advantage of the native analytics available in your social media account dashboards, and also consider using some free or low-cost third-party tools like Hootsuite, Social Mention, and Buffer to obtain deeper tracking and insights.
Interested in learning more about how to use social media to promote your student club event or conference? Fill out this brief request form and someone from Wharton’s Social Media team will get back to you with suggestions. In the meantime, be sure to check out these other resources for covering and promoting your event using social media.