Open Forum

Happy Monday everyone! We are back to kick off the week with our Huddle of the Week!

Social media event strategies enable you to harness the full power of digital, from start to finish. Here are some ways to take advantage of social media for your events:

Before the Event

• Identify your target audience
• Select the ideal social channel
• Use hashtags
• Engage influencers
• Ensure consistency
• Post regularly
• Create teaser posts
• Create a Facebook event

During the Event

• Identify live streaming opportunities
• Promote your hashtag
• Use video on social media

After the Event

• Create videos
• Ask for testimonials
• Feature event testimonials

Questions for you:

• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy?
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?

Want to learn more about the benefits of a social media event strategy? Check out our Cvent Blog post – Creating a Social Media Plan for Events- today! 

#HuddleoftheWeek

#VoiceIt

#PromotingYourEvent

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Megan Clark
Assistant Team Lead, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? Social media is a great way to promote an events and get a feel for what's going on on-site while they are happening.
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?  Attendees tend to get more invested in an event and enjoy them more when they can see things from other people's perspective while also showing their own.

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Julie-Michelle Davis, CMP
Meetings Manager
Amex GBT - USA
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? Most of our events are for internal/invite only so we don't post much, but when we do, we ensure we create nice graphics that hopefully attract people, try and explain the where/when/benefit of attending.
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? We'll usually get some picked up traction when we do it for things like our virtual events that anyone can attend. For more private events we do just see a lot of engagement from people wanting to know how to be invited and from employees proud of the work we're doing to support their clients.

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Rachel
NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-08-2023 09:32
From: Julie-Michelle Davis
Subject: Social Media Event Strategy

• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? Social media is a great way to promote an events and get a feel for what's going on on-site while they are happening.
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?  Attendees tend to get more invested in an event and enjoy them more when they can see things from other people's perspective while also showing their own.

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Julie-Michelle Davis, CMP
Meetings Manager
Amex GBT - USA
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? I work for a DMO and we have multiple people that do our social media posts. It works so well to promote our city, events, and brand. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? They do such a good job with reels, pictures, and context- everyone wants to come to SAV. You have to come check out our most Instagrammable spots!

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Virginia McCoy
Sales Associate
Visit Savannah
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? We have started to use social media for to advertise our events. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? We are still early in using social media to promote our events but hopefully we will see a jump in registration. 

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Robin Wiley
Senior Medical Education Coordinator
ZimVie, USA
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy?

We have made Facebook events to allow people to see and sign up for our events, and we always make teaser posts to build excitement. Usually we'll do multiple types of teaser posts - some might be a photo with share text, another might be a video, etc.  That way we're more likely to engage more people. We also really like to make posts afterwards with highlights, to help make people more likely to want to attend our next event.

• What benefits have you seen from using social media?

It has definitely helped us engage people we might not reach otherwise, and get people excited about our events

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Elena PEREZ
Communications Coordinator
SEIU - UHWUnited States
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? I like to encourage attendees to use a specific hashtag so we can collect their photos post event and use them for future marketing. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? By using attendee's photos in the marketing you get the "hey I know that person" effect. If you know someone that attends an event, you can ask them about their impression and then end up signing up. It helps generate a conversation among friends/colleagues.

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Hilary Grider
ConferenceDirect
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This is exactly what I came here to say!  Encouraging attendees to post their content goes such a long way.

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Amy Zientek
Director Of Sales
Visit Lubbock The Convention and Visitors BureauUnited States
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-08-2023 14:40
From: Hilary Grider
Subject: Social Media Event Strategy

• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? I like to encourage attendees to use a specific hashtag so we can collect their photos post event and use them for future marketing. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? By using attendee's photos in the marketing you get the "hey I know that person" effect. If you know someone that attends an event, you can ask them about their impression and then end up signing up. It helps generate a conversation among friends/colleagues.

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Hilary Grider
ConferenceDirect
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy?
  • Yes, we share our open webinars on LinkedIn
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?
  • We can attribute attendees to social; however we have not yet set up processes to attribute ROI from social... but we will eventually have this set up

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Lori Wildman
Marketing Director
lwildman@dmainc.com
DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc.United States
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy?
  • We have a hashtag for our event that we like and share attendee pictures from.
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?
  • Social media has helped to promote our event to an audience beyond our email database!

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Teresa Holliday
Marketing Coordinator
Dow Jones and Co., Inc.United States
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I think the best ways are the contests or photo sharing. People love sharing photos and it really helps show an experience in real life. 

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Megan Vivier
EA
Boettcher FoundationUnited States
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy?
  • Social media was second only to email campaigns to promote our users conference at my previous position. We had a hashtag we used every year. Testimonials (both print and video) about past events were used for promotion, along with speaker announcements, session features, etc. Afterwards, our videographer had a great compilation video we used for post-promotion. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?
  • Social definitely boosted our registration numbers and helped expand our reach to the customer base.

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Tori Martinez
Event Technology Specialist
Creative Group Inc.
United States
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy?

Social media allows us to post our events, share themes, and give a reminder to people that the event is coming up!

• What benefits have you seen from using social media?

When reminders on social media appear, it allows people to engage, get excited, and connect with others in the event. 

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Katherine Nichols
Event Coordinator
Conscious DisciplineUnited States
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Questions for you:

• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? Shareable posts for participants, using photos (instead of words) to draw attention and evoke nostalgia/positive feelings from viewers
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? Engagement of folks who aren't able to attend, increased enthusiasm about the next event, tasks participants to engage in a new way and feel motivated by the energy and experiences of others.

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Cate Liverman
Director-Constituent Relations
UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School FoundationUnited States
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? Yes, during the event we ask attendees to use specific hashtags.  
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?  We havent started tracking this information yet, but we plan on it.  

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Susan Harrison
Meeting & Event Manager
Atlas Travel Meetings & IncentivesUnited States
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-15-2023 07:22
From: Cate Liverman
Subject: Social Media Event Strategy

Questions for you:

• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? Shareable posts for participants, using photos (instead of words) to draw attention and evoke nostalgia/positive feelings from viewers
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? Engagement of folks who aren't able to attend, increased enthusiasm about the next event, tasks participants to engage in a new way and feel motivated by the energy and experiences of others.

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Cate Liverman
Director-Constituent Relations
UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School FoundationUnited States
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Social media always helps to continue the story. You can share your mission before, during and after an event, which is a huge bonus. 

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Kayla Sisco
Program Manager
Meetings & Incentives Worldwide, Inc.United States
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy?
  • Yes, I like to create an e-comm and social media calendar. In this, I set up dates/times and content. I also include the social media forum. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media?
  • I've not found a huge amount of traffic yet, but for higher education LinkedIn is great.  I found it helps us reach alumni and industry partners at a higher and more efficient manner than cold calling/emailing.

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Lesley Irminger
Events Manager, College of Public Health
George Mason - Office Of University EventsUnited States
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Questions for you:

• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? If my client has social media to incorporate, I've started to use the Share Prompt section of the registration path. Am interested to see how it works. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? Hopefully, it generates more registrations. 

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Erica Lovercamp
Conference Coordinator
Curators of the University of MissouriUnited States
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• How have you taken advantage of including social media in your event strategy? Since our events are somewhat unique, we typically post social after the event in a recap form. 
• What benefits have you seen from using social media? We use social media for our quick turn webinars to link people to registration - it creates an influx of attendance within a week of an event.

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Beth Vriesen.
Events Registration Administrator
Associated Bank Corporation
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