Event is an essential part of branding and marketing strategies. Hence, it is crucial to have a strong event strategy. Much time is spent crafting content such as web pages, invitations, and videos, before, during and after an event. But, by actively using user-generated content, you can boost your event to a whole new level. Your potential target audience, be it B2B or B2C, spends a significant part of their days online. Hence, now is the time to take advantage of social media. Make your event an even more successful one by throwing in social media into the mix! Therefore, we present you five ways on how to get started:

1. Let The Audience Be Your Ambassadors

Work with influencers, event speakers or recurring participants to spread the word through their social networks. Competitions on social media are also a great way of engaging and rewarding your potential audience. Use a specific #hashtag; then, invite your audience to share photos or videos to win something appealing, such as free event tickets. The advantage of holding a competition is that you can also collect valuable user-generated content.

Not only does such content increase your organic reach it can continuously help you in other marketing efforts as they build trust and credibility among the target audience. Also, keep in mind that the competition essentially should be about boosting your event. Starbucks has conducted several inspiring competitions that generated large amounts of user-generated content and publicity. One of these events was the Starbucks partner cup design contest.

2. No Hype, Create Hype

71% of the surveyees rely on friends and acquaintances for buying decisions.

– 2016 EARNED BRAND study

To leverage on this, use the user-generated content collected to spread and create a hype around the event. Visualize such content easily with Sparkle in various ways, as for an example on your event page. This can help increase your ticket sales or the audience size, if the event is free of charge. 

3. Enhanced Experience With Beautiful “Social Walls”

Create an engaging event for your participants beyond the usual, by making them co-creators of their own experience. Invite them to share pictures or classic “selfies” on-site and visualize them on screens wherever you want at the event. Also, prepare a number of entries so that the participants get started faster. An exemplar would be when NRJ partnered with Sparkle for the NRJ Star Night, which saw 2307 posts in just ONE evening.

4. Reach Out Beyond The Event

If you have recurring events, it is especially effective to use user-generated content from social media. The shared content creates a sense of belonging, even among those in your audience that for some reason, are not present. The 2307 posts posted on the above-mentioned NRJ event had a potential reach of 3, 242, 325 individuals! This meant that many of those who were not physically at the event could still follow it through social media!

5. Event Strategy Review And Insights

Using Sparkle, you can analyze the full effect of the user-generated content to gain key insights.

Firstly, look at the potential reach, number of posts, comments and “likes”. This provides a good indication of the interest of the event and your brand in your audience.

Next, analyze the content shared during the event. This step generates important insights about your target audience and their engagement. Also, pairing pictures to see themes or tendencies is a great way to draw deeper meaning and! Do the pictures align with how you want your event and brand to be perceived? Use these valuable key insights to sharpen your next marketing and event strategy.

With that, we conclude the 5 tips that we have had in store for you. All the best for your next event!