Online to IRL: Bringing your online community to life at an event

Building community online is one thing–most organizations have spent years amassing followers and fans on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with communities amounting into the tens or hundreds of thousands. And those communities can spur hundreds of likes, comments and shares a day on these platforms.  But translating all that online activity into real-life excitement and engagement is a different story…and an important one.

For many marketers, hosting tradeshows, conferences and events are ubiquitous elements of their annual marketing strategies, and yet while planning those events, many are missing out on the opportunity to extend their brand during those events, particularly by leveraging their online communities.

If you’re a marketer in the midst of planning a brand event, you might want to consider some of these tips on leveraging your social media communities to bring that energy, excitement and brand advocacy that happens online to life:

Start before the event

This one seems obvious, but promoting an event a week or even a month in advance isn’t going to do much in the way of moving the needle, especially if this is one of your brands’ signature events where hefty budgets are being spent on event production. At Hodges we’ve seen the most success by beginning promotion at least six months out.

Keep a steady drumbeat

That’s not to say that we drove our fans crazy by bashing them over the head with event updates every day for six months. Pull out your editorial calendar and layer in event news among your regularly scheduled content. Try to keep a balance between sales messaging (pushing registration or ticket sales) and emphasizing the benefits your community will receive by attending the event.

Vary your content mix

Use a combination of blog posts, video and graphic imagery to keep your message from being monotonous. We’re big proponents of sharing the same information in different formats because people consume information differently and one type of content may resonate better with your audience than others.

Onsite activation

Now that you’ve built up online buzz, keep momentum going at the event by making your online presence highly visible onsite. For example, we’ve partnered with vendors such as Postano and Tagboard to create enormous and stunning displays of our communities’ social media activity at events in real time. This encourages people to post more while on site and gives the community a way to engage with each other in real time. We also make sure to spread lots of signage throughout the venue displaying the event hashtag as a reminder for folks to include it in their updates. Whether or not you are working with an event production company, make sure onsite activation is included in your plans early on.

Create opportunities to share

Whether it’s a photo booth, a meticulously styled food display or fun décor, you’ll want to create photo ops and moments that are obvious and easy for your attendees to share. One event we worked on in New Orleans used a Mardi Gras-style parade to lead attendees from the hotel to the event venue for an opening reception, which was tons of fun, but also resulted in an incredible amount of photo and video shares online, which were then also re-played back to the community at the event via the Tagboard display. People loved seeing their photos and updates displayed up on the huge screens.

Consider an app

While all this social media activity is great for onsite engagement and even spreading your brand awareness beyond event attendees, you may find a dedicated event app useful for more direct communication among attendees. In addition to acting like a digital program guide with schedules, maps and a list of speakers, some apps have built in networking functions that allow people to connect via their LinkedIn or other social media profiles to set appointments with each other for networking or other meetings. It’s also a great way to see the attendee list beforehand and begin making connections before they even get to the event.

These are just a few of the ways we’ve used our digital platforms to generate activity and excitement for an event online and then used that momentum to drive participation and engagement at the event. What are some tactics you’ve used? Share them with us in the comments below.

Photo credit: Tagboard