Making Friends
Truth be told, I was among the last of my friends to engage with social media. For months my husband told me I would love Facebook. My response? I didn’t have time to engage in a silly activity where I needed to invite people to be my friends.
Now it’s hard to imagine my life without social media. That’s become my best source for staying in touch with interesting and important things going on in the lives of multiple friends and extended family. Some of the best ideas for places to travel, restaurants to try, races to run, and events to attend have come to me through social media posts.
Sherri Savage from the Ann Plans team has done a great job of both growing our social media presence and helping clients create social media plans for their events. Read on for some of our favorite tips.
Posting with Impact and Ease
Social media is a free and powerful marketing tool, but it does take time and discipline to use it effectively. Here are some ways to work smartly in expanding your social media reach:
- Plan ahead! Be proactive in creating a social media calendar. The specifics of what you post can be tweaked as the details of your event evolve, but having a template of what you plan to post over several weeks makes it easier to stick to the plan.
- Never forget mission! Infuse your posts with both mission and fun. Events provide a great opportunity to share the work of your organization. Be sure to tie some of your social media messaging back to the people you serve.
- Create an event hashtag, and make sure it is easy to remember. Include the hashtag with all of your posts, and encourage others to do the same. A hashtag serves as a search enginefor your event and organization. Resist the temptation to include a year in the hashtag as it will limit the search capabilities.
- Tag individuals and businesses to maximize reach.
- Use visuals. Your post will get more activity if you include a photo or other image. Make it a goal to include an image with every post.
- Be creative in what you post. Ideas include behind-the-scenes photos of menu tastings, invitations hot off the press, and auction basket assembly. Post photos of your vendors and volunteers in action during set up. Stage photos during the event showcasing the most fun and mission-filled aspects of your event.
- Invite participation. Pose questions that facilitate comments and votes. This week a social media post for Courage Kenny’s Shoot for Fun event asks whether people would prefer to win a 2017 Polaris Ranger 570 or 2017 CanAm Defender 800 in our September raffle.
- Utilize video. Short video clips teasing out fun aspects of your upcoming event will get noticed. Facebook Live is an exciting way to showcase the buzz at your event. Be sure to share the videos created for your event as part of your post-event social media activity.
- Make social media an activity at your event. Last month at the Green Tie Affair hosted by The Nature Conservancy we premiered a social media wall as an interactive guest activity. Throughout the evening, social media posts using the #GreenTieAffair hashtag were rotated on monitors in the event space. We also pre-populated the social media wall with sponsor logo slides and images promoting the live auction items.
We Are Honored!
Ann Plans is recognized as Favorite Event Planner in this month’s Minnesota Women’s Press. This honor is extra meaningful as it coincides with our 10th anniversary year. Thank you to everyone who makes it possible for our team to do such rewarding work each and every day.
In closing, we hope you will stay social with Ann Plans! Please follow us here for ongoing ideas and updates on what we’re up to:
Ann Plans Facebook Page
Ann Plans Twitter
Ann Plans Instagram
Your friend (Facebook and otherwise),
Ann
