GUIDE Eventbrite and Hootsuite The small business guide to social media and event marketing Table of Contents Four affordable event marketing ideas (with examples) ......................................................................4 What’s new in 2015 marketing events ......................................................................................................8 Run a small business event in 10 easy steps ..........................................................................................10 Five ways you can use social media to boots engagement and RVPSs for your next event ....... 14 Four things to do on social media while your event is happening .....................................................16 Three things you can do to keep engagement strong after your event is over..............................18 HOOTSUITE AND EVENTBRITE 2 Eventbrite and Hootsuite The small business guide to social media and event marketing Events are a smart way to attract more business while strengthening the ties you already have in your community. From the smallest get-together to a large multi-day conference, events shine a spotlight on your company or cause, can generate referrals and new customers, and help your keep existing relationships going strong. To help you get started, Hootsuite and Eventbrite have Hootsuite enables businesses to develop meaningful teamed up to give you the best practices, how-tos, and relationships with customers and draw actionable practical examples of how to make events and social insights from social media. Whether you’re working in a media a successful part of your marketing strategy. team or as an individual, learn how to manage, monitor, and measure your social activity. Eventbrite makes it possible for people all over the world to plan, promote, and sell tickets to any event, so Together, you’ll learn everything you need to make sure they’ve seen what works—and what doesn’t—when it your events are successful. comes to event planning. HOOTSUITE AND EVENTBRITE 3 Four affordable event marketing ideas (with examples) It’s all very well talking about business events and event marketing in theory, but what kinds of events should you be running? Firstly, to help answer that question, Eventbrite has created this quiz. To help you think through your available options, Eventbrite reached out to a few businesses of different shapes and sizes to share their experience of running marketing events. Here is what they have to say: The webinar Webinars are fantastic for companies who can’t afford e-commerce systems. In addition to using the forum a venue, want to reach a scalable audience and whose to raise awareness of the VAT rules change, we also objective is primarily to inform or educate. It also helps introduced the audience to our solution and this led to that they’re a great form of lead generation too. tangible sales conversions. Eventbrite asked digital tax startup Taxamo (@taxamo) How did social media play a part in your event? about their last webinar. Social media plays a big role in all of our activities. As we are a digital company, selling to digital companies, What was the event? our customers are always online. We have a very active We hosted a 2015 EU VAT Rules, 100 Day Countdown Twitter channel and LinkedIn profile, and regularly event. produce original content for our audience. We used these social media channels to publicise our event and What was its main purpose? to post content following the event. The purpose of this event was to raise awareness among digital sellers of some major new rules that were How did you keep costs down? coming into effect on January 1, 2015. These new rules The use of social media channels and free tools such have a significant impact on how VAT is applied to the as Eventbrite were essential to keeping our costs down. sale of digital services and we found that many many At the time of the event, we were very much in start-up merchants were completely unaware. mode and keeping costs down, while at the same time hosting a quality event that represented our brand Did it meet your goals? was a fine act to balance. Our biggest spend was on Yes, very much so. Taxamo provides a complete the live stream element, but we were pleased with technical solution for the 2015 EU VAT rules that the end product and its been something that we have enables merchants to comply using their existing repurposed and used as a sales tool on many occasions. HOOTSUITE AND EVENTBRITE 4 The networking evening Networking events are a brilliant way for companies to Event milestones were: bring together all their sales prospects or key customers August 2014 – first ever #EventPlannersTalk Twitter into a room together. They’re flexible in format, chat about how to promote events using social with some having a panel or speaker to offer some media – questions from organiser. education, while others focus purely on the networking, drinks and food. This makes them adaptable to almost February 2015 – first ever #EventPlannersTalk live any budget and business goal. event about how to promote events using social media – panel of event industry professionals discuss Eventbrite asked founder and publisher of The Mice questions from the audience, facilitated by Sli.do. Blog (@themiceblog) about their last networking event. March 2015 – Follow-up Twitter chat featuring top What was the event? questions from the audience and opportunity for #EventPlannersTalk is a weekly Twitter chat for event those who attended and not attended to answer the planners every Monday from 9 – 10pm GMT (Except first questions and network with each other. Monday of each month when #EventBlogChat for event bloggers takes place). Some of past topics include how What was its main purpose? to promote events using social media, sustainability and Main objectives are to share best industry practice, green events, how to start an event planning business, collaboration, network with fellow event professionals event technology, event branding, and storytelling. and extend event life-cycle. Based on the high level of engagement on Twitter I Did it meet its goals? decided to host a live event about one of the past topics Yes, the ones who didn’t attend the event could also and bring the online community in the physical space, actively participate and share their views on the topic. extend event life-cycle and networking face-to-face. The first event took place in February 2014. How did social media play a part in the event? It created and increased awareness, facilitated engagement pre-, during and after the events and constant and prompt communication. How did you keep costs down? I kept costs down using Twitter as the main communication platform, by collaborating with event technology providers, venue and speakers. No print and name badges were provided on-site, which is also good for the environment! HOOTSUITE AND EVENTBRITE 5 The pop-up Pop-ups and discovery events are perfect for companies How did social media play a part in the event? who want to introduce potential customers to the goods We tried to build in talking points and ‘shareable’ and services they have to offer, by getting onto the features - from the artwork to the window dressing; street and taking their message to the target audience. characters; decor - and the concept itself. I made sure While it take a little more budget and imagination to pull we featured the hashtag on napkins to keep it top of off a great pop-up event, the value to the brand can be mind too. huge. During the event we also filmed people in slow motion Eventbrite’s City Marketing Manager for Europe, KT doing a pancake flip - this was projected on the wall McPhee, about her last event. then uploaded to YouTube which people then shared What was the event? How did you keep costs down? DiscoveredLDN: The Pancake Academy. A Pancake I had to prioritise - for me the two important things Day themed pop-up with features including a pancake were supplying delicious pancakes for everyone and flipping contest and a ‘lab’ where people could the memorable, shareable feature of the slow motion experiment with toppings to get on their pancakes. pancake flipping. But that meant that I had to forego the live DJ and a coffee cart which I’d originally planned. What was its main purpose? We instead used a pre-prepared playlist and had a ‘DIY’ To promote Eventbrite as the place to find unique and coffee / drinks area. interesting things to do in London. Did it meet its goals? 100% yes. We had 890 register for the event (against a goal of 800), nearly 200 social mentions and we saw an increase in the number of people going to Eventbrite to buy tickets in London during and after the event. HOOTSUITE AND EVENTBRITE 6 The conference Conferences are a big commitment in both time and How did social media play a part in the event? budget, but if you really want to make a splash with a Social was absolutely central to the success. From the B2B audience, then they could be a very effective route moment we open pre-reg we were tweeting about it to to get noticed by all the right people. our community. That was so successful we sold out pre- reg in a matter of minutes, which shows the importance Eventbrite asked mobile communication startup of having a strong social community. Zula (@zulaapp) about why they launched a conference. In the end all of our marketing – so all our attendees – What was the event? found out about the event through social. The Zula Messaging Summit, which was held in New York City, November 4th 2014 We even used social to invite our speakers. Then on the day, we had our hashtag all over the place, What was its main purpose? which ultimately led to it trending on Twitter.