15 ways social media can make your next event a smashing success

August 25, 8:57 PMSF Social Media Marketing ExaminerSarah Browne

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Once upon a time, I envied my event planner buddies. They were perpetually zipping off to Beijing or Paris, snoozing on Egyptian cotton sheets at ritzy hotels and despite a few cases of Spock-ear from wearing those geeky headsets, the event life was good.

Now, thanks to an expanding list of contrary forces, from AIG’s zillion-dollar tomato-basil facials to the R-word and even the emergence of webinar technology plus the unconference trend, planning an event is now rife with boobytraps. Like its sister industry — PR — there’s a growing divide between ‘traditional’ event planning and neo-event planning.

You can guess where I’m going with this.  Social Media.

Any small business planning an event, conference, party, trade show or group gathering is plain loco to resist  tapping into the  social media tools and technologies now available. In fact,  if you only use half of my list below, you’ll still greatly increase the odds of running a successful event — and even better, you may also win points for cost-efficiency and even carbon-offsetting, to say nothing of cool.  That goes double if your event is targeting Millennial/Echo Boomers.

Here’s my list of social media secrets:

• Your first priority should be setting up event tags. You’ll be using these tags across multiple social media platforms from Flickr to Twitter. Think of a tag as a simple category name. Attendees can categorize their posts, photos and videos with the event tag(s) you create.
• Post your event with event planning sites such as Upcoming, Eventful and if appropriate, Meetup.com, evite.com and pingg.com.  Pingg has a feature called SurroundSend, which lets you send invitations via SMS (text) message.  Note: Be vigilant about privacy issues. Without opt-in, this can backfire bigtime.
• Use Facebook for events as well — but don’t try to project attendance from the numbers of Facebookers who check Attending on the page. Most Facebookers are exposed to dozens of events per week, many of them online-only events. Often there is initial enthusiasm and even acceptance. This doesn’t mean they’ll actually show up.
• If the company or organization doesn’t already have its own website, use Ning to create one and promote your event from your new site.
• Use Google Maps to direct people to your event. Set up carpooling as well and post links to public transportion schedules and fares.
• Set up Flickr tags and inform your participants so they can use them when posting their own event pictures.
• If appropriate, recruit bloggers to Live Blog the event. And always contact influential bloggers in advance with event information.
• Set up a YouTube channel for videos of your event.
• Many events are using live video tools like Ustream.tv which lets you broadcast and chat online with a global audience. It’s completely free, all it takes is a camera and Internet connection.
• Go beyond traditional wire services by tapping into the neo-PR world of Pitchengine.com.
  Founded by social media pioneer Jason Kintzler, PitchEngine is shaking up the PR industry by making it possible for PR pros, brands, and agencies to build and share digital, social media releases with their contacts for free.
• If yours is a Social Good type of event, add this new cause related widget, Reply For All. Replyforall offers an application (currently only for Gmail and Yahoo! mail) that allows users to raise money for their causes of choice by embedding a brand-sponsored message into their e-signature.
• Twitter is one of the best event tools ever. Set up a hashtag (example: #yourevent) so that tweeters may follow the event tweets or even coordinate a Tweet-up. By placing the # symbol before a word, phrase, or abbreviation, it creates a mini-search engine phrase that can be looked up and followed on Twitter. Not only is this a powerful tool for organizing tweets about your events but it also may boost your SEO. 
• Ask your speakers or presenters to use hashtags. When I am the speaker at events I invite the audience to tweet in real time using the hashtag created specifically for the event. Or if the event is a Lab360, brandstorming workshop or other Guru of New event, I suggest that ‘tweeple’ tweet #guruofnew.
• Use Twitpic or Twiddeo to tweet pictures or video links of the event. Invite key influencers to tweet event info prior to the event.   Twitpic lets you share photos on Twitter.  Twiddeo is a powerful but simple service that let’s you Twitter updates with Video. Upload from the web, your cameraphone and record from your webcam.
• Is there an event- relevant iPhone app?  Even if there isn’t ‘an app for that’ specific industry or topic, there may be one for the city where the event is being held, or a food/wine/travel info app.