This is a sponsored post from Cvent.
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In today’s highly disruptive, stimulation-filled world, your attendees may physically occupy space between the four walls of your event, but more than likely, their attention is drifting somewhere between four screens – a smartphone, tablet, laptop, and your event’s audio visual set up. In the digital era, it is practically an evolutionary reflex for your attendees to constantly toggle between all these different mediums, checking text messages, scanning social media updates, responding to work emails, and trying to absorb the actual presentation. Unfortunately, attendees’ chaotic and fractured attention spans detract from your event and diminish their overall experience.
While this is a problem, it is also an opportunity. An opportunity for you, the event planner, to reclaim your attendees’ stream of consciousness. It’s your chance to divert their attention back to your event by creating a social media strategy that encourages engagement, amplifies peak moments and empowers influencers.
Here are a few tips for cutting through the chaos and capitalizing on the potency of social media. For the complete guide to social media strategy during your events download Cvent’s free eBook: Social Media Power Plays for Events.
Encourage Engagement
While many event planners put tremendous amounts of effort into their pre-event social media marketing, many also fail to tailor their social media strategies so they can be carried over into the next phase of the event lifecycle. Once your event goes live, you should have a social media content hub – whether it’s a website, microsite, blog or mobile app – to house your event-based content.
Attendees should be directed to the hub and encouraged to share content on various social media channels. This can accelerate networking, increase your event’s visibility and keep everyone engaged with your event.
Amplify Peak Moments
Throughout the course of your event, there will be some moments that are more exciting and poignant than others. They are the moments that impact your audience the most and are ripe for discussion, praise and amplification. Instead of bombarding attendees with social sharing prompts during the whole event, focus on getting them to be the most active during the three to five best parts of the event. By emphasizing these exciting, high-impact moments, your attendees are most likely to remember your event as an overwhelmingly positive experience.
Empower Influencers
The first step in empowering your event influencers is identifying them. Your event’s most loyal and effective influencers are the attendees in your audience who come back year after year. Their word-of-mouth buzz both online and off is a useful tool when it comes to generating interest within their own small networks.
The next segment of influencers to identify are people well known by your audience and aligned with your event’s mission. These influencers are usually industry thought leaders, bloggers and members of the press, sponsors and exhibitors and leadership staff. To rally them in support of your event, consider cluing them in on your social media strategy so they know what to expect and promote. After that, you can inspire them to wield their influence by connecting them with other influencers, providing exclusive access to speakers, acknowledging them for their participation and making sure the experience is fun.
In Conclusion
There are a lot of components that go into putting on a successful event, and social media is no longer a component that can be overlooked. No matter how compelling, educational or interesting your event is, if you don’t have a strategy in place to share it on social media during all phases of the event lifecycle, you are not realizing the full potential of your event. Download a copy of Social Media Power Plays for Events and learn how to achieve success between four walls