Social Marketing

Marketing events by micro-blogging

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Social media platforms

What is micro-blogging: Micro-blogs are mini posts or updates that can directly be sent to blogs. There are a number of services for micro-blogging, like Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace also have micro-blogging features in them, called status updates.


Microblogging appeals to people because it is immediate and because they can send the updates through portable mediums as well, thus making it more accessible. You can send messages as text, video or audio. You can also use cell-phones to send and receive updates.

Micro-blogging your events: For events, I would say, one of the most valuable things is how you can give live updates of your plans or of the events themselves as they unfold. So those readers listening in from home, will know just how remarkable the event is. If your updates are combined with Google maps, the experience will be even better. Takes me back to the time when we used to send videos, feedbacks, thoughts and thanks only the day after the event, once everything was well over. This was only a few years back. Now, it’s amazing how we can give minute by minute updates to people all across the globe. Even if our community isn’t present at the site of an event, our bond still grows, because they know exactly what we’re about. We once had an inauguration that we were twittering about on an hourly basis. After a while we started to receive messages from curious readers; “has the ribbon been cut?”, “does anyone like the new painting additions?”, etc. Needless to say, I was ecstatic.

It’s all about balance: So, while micro-blogging can be great, if it is not done properly it can also be intrusive. You have to differentiate between two mental reactions; “that’s good to know“ versus “who cares“. Use the right mental triggers to make sure you give something of value, rather than inane pushy updates. Remember, an over dosage of any social marketing tool can have a negative marketing effect as well, so its all about striking a comfortable balance.

Service Options: I would suggest you to explore different micro-blogging services before getting started on it. Some of them may seem more valuable and relevant to the event planning business. For example, Pownce offers additional things like file-sharing and event invitations on top of their micro-blogging service. So, you can send your electronic invitations or tickets through it to your community. Similarly, you can use Twitter to keep informing your audiences about the traffic situations on route to your events. This again, is a great way to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Find your customers: You can interlink this with the other social marketing tools that you are using and then target your event audiences. For example if your service is for frequent travelers and are launching an event for them to meet, socialize and avail discounts; you can put a watch on twitter updates to find people who travel a lot. If a twitter user is traveling, he or she would surely put that in. If this is your target market, then it’s a good idea to be right there Twittering too.

Facebook 2 - Expanding your network

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Networking on Facebook can be broken down into two initial steps:

1- Finding existing friends
2- Joining groups


Finding friends: Once you have your profile all nicely set up. Look for people that you already know from your past or present life that are on facebook. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think they fit your market segments - the bigger your network the better it will be. So, get down to some serious people hunting. Remember not to add people that you don’t already know or they may report you as spammers.

A few great ways to find your friends are:

1- get Facebook to check addresses from your email account to see if anyone has a Facebook profile. (this can be done automatically, in the “find friends” section)

2- search for people from your schools and colleges based on your years of graduation. (this can be done using the “more ways to find friends” option at the bottom)

3- search for activities that you have been involved with to see if there any Facebook groups for them. This could be anything from childhood spacecamps to college sketching classes.

4- search for people using the search bar with their names. Make sure you’ve got the right person before sending them invites.

5- finally, go to the profiles of your Facebook friends and look at their friends network to see if you know anyone there.

Joining Groups: Once you have exhausted your ways of adding people that you know, the next step is to find people that you want on your page. These could be your target markets, your perfect audiences, possible future evangalists. Anyone. The way to do this is by finding groups that these people are in and joining those groups first. After having an active presence in the group, you can invite them to be on your friends lists. The best way for this would be to get them to add you instead. Some tips:

1- Make sure you join several networks instead of restricing yourself to just a handful. These groups should be chosen based on your targeted markets. To look for groups, simply select the “groups” section on your homepage, or you can browse through the groups recently joined by your friends to get a head start. Find those groups that are already active and have something going on all the time.

2- After joining, get a feel for the group first. Never start to promote yourself. Take time to participate, answer questions, get help, give help and build reputation and credibility amongst the group members.

3- Based on how well you participate, the members of the groups may want to start following your blogs or add you to their friend networks etc. Once you have this kind of following, you can announce events, find people to test your products, find people who can promote your products for you, get opinions and feedbacks and get a chance to really understand how your market behaves.

Great events - the community power

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We’ve often talked about how we can make our events more successful, big or small, using online marketing methods. Although social marketing is great for driving traffic to your events, building pre-event hype; it still needs to be handled with tact. So, when you jump on this bandwagon, it is important to come with the right mindset and expectations.


Often when planning events, I’d think of myself as an attendee and plan everything from that perspective. Having a mindset which is consistent with the audience is very important in social marketing. Having the wrong expectations can result in damages to your reputation as an organizer or event manager.

Social marketing requires strategic planning. Just like a chess game can be mastered, this too can be used in a way that can make your events a huge success every time. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have to do things differently; you’ll just have to approach them differently, that’s all.

Always remember that the people you are marketing to are your “community”. They are a community of people supporting your services, attending your events and communicating directly with you. If you want more people to contact you for services, or manage their events, or attend the events you are managing and so on, then it is important to build initial trust and credibility first.

Secondly, you need to be an active part of the community itself. Participate with the audience, ask them questions, discuss ideas, share thoughts, request feedback. This communication helps people in opening themselves up to you and become more inclined to use your services or attend your parties later on. Also, it is the best way to get a feel for audience expectations and early feedbacks of your events. Credibility comes from sharing insight, discussing thoughts and adding value to conversations. When people start to respect your opinion as a good one, they will become more inclined to becoming your customers.

Taking your events online

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While planning events, the mediums to communicate with the prospects and audience has grown massively. A few years ago, event planners could never have dreamt of having such upfront and direct communication with the attendees before the events even took place. Today, not only is it possible, it is a highly recommended approach for planning your events.


Planning and marketing an event is about building the entire experience for all stakeholders involved. The better you can build a story around the event, the more the excitement and anticipation. It’s fascinating to see how different social mediums can be leveraged to communicate these stories to the targeted audiences to spread. This involvement and communication with your customers is so important now, that it can make or break your events. And since we all want to leave that good after-taste in everyone’s mouth and earn our well-deserved bragging rights, I strongly recommend trying your hand at these social mediums to your advantage. They pay off for events and parties that I plan, every time!

You can only understand its true value if you put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Imagine yourself in a raving crowd on superbowl, or in a pub at a local party, or at a conference launching the coolest gadgets, or at a countdown on time-square? When surrounded with people who share your interests, chances are that your excitement will amplify and become contagious.

Now imagine building an event with that kind of viral and contagious excitement even before it happens. Imagine the traffics it would generate to your local party, big conference, or whatever it is that you are planning. It has worked wonders for us, and I’m sure you can benefit a lot from it as well. Its time for you to think about how to build the right kind of stories around your events and how to effectively build a strong online community of fans.

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