Many brand managers and event promoters use social media because they understand that they “must be present in the social media”. They aren’t mistaken of course but when social presence is a must for everyone, brand managers and event promoters have to take extra steps in order to drive sales.
Events are social, sports fans and music lovers go to events with their friends, sharing the experience before, during and after the event is part of the fun. So connecting fans’ social experience from events with the promotion of events over social media seems like a no brainer. However this seemingly basic concept isn’t fully implemented yet by event organizers.
Here are 5 tips of how to use social to drive event sales:
Create Social Stickiness
Fans and potential ticket buyers perceive information from social media as any other kind of information. There’s nothing special about it anymore. Social media interaction must be leveraged towards recurring consumption of the information by the fans and encouraging them to get constantly updated. Otherwise, communicating your event over social media is not so different than display ads or email marketing. Make sure your fans have a reason to get updated again and again.
Empower your fans
Fans like to feel special and that they are more than just consumers. You can even say that they want to be part of the event. Give them some means in which they can influence the event; chose the pre-show music, provide 2 options for half-time entertainment, or even ask them what would be there preferred special food offer – hot dog or hamburger?
Identify social brand ambassadors
There will always be different levels of engaging fans. Some will just click “attending” or buy a ticket, but some will tweet, post, like and share their excitement for the upcoming events. The latter are your brand ambassadors and you want to nurture their social media activity.
Reward and incentivize social sharing
Fans can be encouraged to invite friends, share the event’s information and post their event related activity. There are many ways to incentivize these activities: free extra tickets, upgrading seats, reward them with free merchandize food and drinks. The costs of these rewards are a very good investment in social promotion.
Use Real-Time Analytics
Social monitoring tools are very helpful for evaluating social trends, identifying brand ambassadors and extracting actionable data. Which links drove the most traffic to your page and which users posted your event and invited their friends? Using free online tools and specialized social promotion services enable you to maximize your social marketing efforts and drive more sales.