Social media: inviting your audience to be a part of something big

Thanks to the advent of social media, you no longer need to be a celebrity to see your name or face on screen. By creating a visual and interactive platform for everyone and anyone to have their voice heard and their image noticed across the technological spectrum of smart phones, laptops and tablets, social media has led to a sort of ‘jump on the bandwagon’ effect. People no longer want to sit in the sidelines – they want to be seen, heard, noticed, and involved.

Engage through dialogue
This is why marketing today must move from a monologue to a dialogue. Your audience doesn’t want to be talked at – they want to feel as though they’re playing an active part in your business, either by sharing a Facebook post, liking an Instagram photo or re-tweeting a message. Once this desire for interactivity is harnessed through a dynamic social media presence, your business has the opportunity to truly engage its target market. You also have a highly effective, unique avenue for promoting your events.

Tools to build hype
Rather than inviting your online audience to simply attend your business’ event, you can now invite them to be a part of it by making them active participants in its promotion. This in turn builds a genuine buzz around your event, because people aren’t hearing about it through a static advert; they’re hearing about it through their friends and colleagues’ posts, tweets, shares and hashtags. All you’ve got to do is put the right tools in place:

• Develop a catchy #hashtag and bespoke URL for your event
• Have an active presence on all social media sites
• Get friends, colleagues, clients and event promoters to increase awareness by interacting with your social media content, and by using your event’s #hashtag and bespoke URL as often as possible
• Create contests and competitions surrounding your event to generate even more interest

Mutual benefits
By tapping into people’s desire to be at the heart of the action and develop their own ‘screen presence’, this type of interactive event promotion can keep your event (and your business) top of mind for millions of social media users; it can even maintain marketing momentum after the event, with photos, statuses and tweets that will consolidate its success.

Make it happen
To find out more on how social media can enhance and promote your event, contact us at info@pointandstare.com or follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/PointnadStare.