Today’s marketing gurus know that Twitter and other social media sites are a strong place for online promotions. Twitter is such a simple platform to use, however, that people can sometimes get ahead of themselves and fail to plan out a Twitter promotion campaign fully. With just a little bit of per-planning, you can have a success tweet that is retweeted over and over.
The Event Hashtag
A hashtag is how Twitter users classify content. A hashtag is the symbol “#” with a word after it. For example #eventplanning. Note that there are no spaces. Users add the hashtag to their tweets and they are then categorized under that hashtag for each reference. It is like starting a conversation with what Business Insider estimates is Twitter’s 232 million users.
Where the power of the hashtag lies is in how it is used by businesses. You can use the hashtag to help conference attendees relate to your event. You can even create a sort of online event that coincides with a live event.
For example, let’s say you hold an annual conference for small business owners and have an awards ceremony as part of your event. You simply ask attendees to tweet throughout the awards and use the hashtag “smallbizawards”. So, some of the tweets might look like this:
Mary Jones of Closets by Mary Jones just won best new startup of 2014! #smallbizawards
Or…
Kudos to the entertainment tonight at the #smallbizawards 2015!
You can see how a lot of people tweeting with the same hashtag can create some buzz. In addition, those participating in the conversation may retweet those posts as well as those not at the event. So, Mary Jones’ sister sees the post about her winning new startup and shares that post and says she’s proud of her sister.
The Best Hashtags
The best hashtags are those that are simple to remember yet unique enough to stand out. You can use the name of your event, the name of your award ceremony or anything else that makes sense for the industry you’re in. Let’s say you are hosting an event for IT professionals. Your hashtag might be #WhereITGathers.
Use your creativity and you’ll come up with something fun and easy to remember.
Get Some Buzz Going
Seek Out Mentions of Your Event
Another thing you’ll want to do is to monitor Twitter for mentions of your event. You should then favorite and retweet those mentions. This shows your conference attendees that you are engaged with them, listening to what they post on social media and that you appreciate their effort to spread the word.
Trending
Another thing that can help you get some buzz going is to pay attention to trending topics. If people are talking about a new product release, can you tie that into your event? For example, if there is better database management software that’s been released, is your conference hosting a workshop on this topic?
Try to tie into topics that make sense, though, and add something to the conversation or you’ll come across sounding spammy.
Hold a Contest
Another way to get some buzz going is to start a contest to see who can post the best tweet using your hashtag. This can get those attending your event talking as well as those who are thinking about attending your event.
- Too Many Hashtags
- You’ll want to limit the number of hashtags in a tweet (and those you encourage others to post) to one or two. Too may hashtags can be distracting and you’ll fail to get your point across or keep the conversation flowing smoothly. What are you waiting for? Jump over to Twitter and post an announcement about your event today. #YourTurn
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