Following on from my previous post Planning & Promoting Your Events Using Social Media I wanted to write about managing and improving your events through the use of social media. Social media is…

Following on from my previous post Planning & Promoting Your Events Using Social Media I wanted to write about managing and improving your events through the use of social media.

Social media is fast becoming an integral part of an event managers toolbox. Event organisers are turning more and more to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to engage with their delegates. Even though these sites are a fantastic platform to promote your events they are also a great medium to continue the debate once the event has finished.

During the event talk to your delegates about continuing the conversation/debate through these social channels, such as creating a Twitter hashtag which is unique to your event and encourage them to update their own twitter feeds with tweets about the event using this unique hashtag. Enabling anyone at the event or anyone interested in your event to instantly see what people are saying and doing.

Once the event is over, keeping the communication open with your delegates is important, suggest to your delegates that this is an effective way to continue networking with each other. If you organise an annual event, ensuring your social media platforms are updated will provide you with a good source of content and marketing material for the next event. You need to:

• Add photos to your Facebook page, Flickr account and on Twitter photos (TwitPic)
• Upload any videos from the event to your Facebook page or YouTube account
• Post event start a discussion with your delegates in your LinkedIn event page
• Create blog posts and posts about your thoughts on the event, maybe add some guest posts from the delegates or event partners

Paying attention to what your delegates really thought of the event is vital, did they like one area of the event in particular? Did they prefer a certain speaker? Was the food horrible? By simply listening to what your delegates are saying will ensure you improve the quality of your future events.

The utilisation of social media sites will ensure you market your event to a wider audience than you would normally have access to. If used carefully and appropriately, event managers can use the popularity of these tools to help improve their events and make them a success.

Managing all these social media sites can be quite time consuming. Some event management software solutions include social media modules and by combining social media event marketing with other online solutions such as email marketing and online registrations will make the event planning process more streamlined and efficient.

If you would like to talk to evocos or for further information on how we can help you manage and improve your events then please contact us.