What does the date 15th June 2018 mean to you? For us Macclesfield folk, it marked the kick off of this year’s Barnaby Festival – And wasn’t it just amazing?
The full 10 days were packed full of talks, walks, art, comedy and music. All of Barnaby’s Social Media accounts were ran entirely by a small team of volunteers – We want to give them a massive congratulations for doing a wonderful job! The festival has left all of Macclesfield’s locals breathless, and the majority of the local business owners wondering how on earth they can utilise social media to promote their local events as well as Barnaby have. Don’t worry, we’ve got some great advice for you!
So, where should you start?
#1 Find your audience!
Well before your event has even started, you need to figure out who you want to attend the event and engage with them where they’re most likely to spend their time online.
Unfortunately, it’s not always as simple as having just one social media account! To take a leaf out of Barnaby’s book, create accounts for your business on multiple social media channels. This makes it easy for your target audience to find you on whatever social media platform they prefer to use.
Using multiple social media channels doesn’t mean you have to publish different content on each one. The content you want to use can be adapted for each channel – You can even use the same captions!
What do we suggest?
Facebook is known to be the social media channel with the largest amount of active users, so this is a great place to start! However, despite the colossal number of people on the platform, not everyone logs in daily, meaning that they might not see your event.
In order to increase your reach, we also suggest considering Instagram and Twitter.
#2 Create a Facebook Event
As obvious as it sounds, to make your audience aware of your plans you should create a Facebook Event. They provide your audience with the ability to see the finer details including venues, schedules, updates and who’s actually going. It even gives people the option to invite their friends and share the event, which work wonders if you want to help grow both awareness and popularity.
Barnaby created multiple events over the course of the 10 days. These events specified exactly what it was, where it was and whether or not pre-booking was required. This gave their audience enough information to decide if the specific event was something they’d interested in, whether they could make it, and if they needed to book ahead.
#3 Utilise visual content
Visual content is a necessity on all social media channels, whether you’re advertising an event or posting real-time updates.
Social media posts that include an image generate 6.5x more engagement than a post without an image. It makes sense! They help your posts to stand out in a person’s newsfeed, meaning that more people will notice (and hopefully engage) your post!
The countdown to the Macclesfield Barnaby Festival this year made a massive impact on the audience. They used creative images and videos of a bunny to help draw attention to the countdown itself – We all loved it!
Barnaby didn’t just stick with images and neither should you! Videos are equally as important to your audience. Your visual content is your way of getting your audience’s attention – Make it count!
#4 Get people involved!
It’s a well-known fact that word-of-mouth is the best form of marketing. People love to share things with their friends, and you should use this to your advantage during the run-up to your event.
There are so many ways that you could get people involved; it just takes a bit of imagination.
Barnaby is a prime example of this! Their #BarnabyWindows social media competition encouraged all of the local businesses to help ‘Paint The Town Barnaby’ by decorating their shop windows. This had a massive impact on creating a buzz for the festival within the community.
What We Recommend
Hashtags are always great on social media – a unique hashtag allows your audience to join in the conversation on a click of a mouse, and reach a wider audience! The more people that use the hashtag, the better!
Sharing relevant content is an awesome idea too, whether it’s sharing someone else’s post on Facebook or sharing a relevant article you’ve found. This can help generate even more buzz about your event by giving people the opportunity to have conversations and share their opinions.
We also recommend that you talk to your audience from your business accounts. These conversations can help to develop relationships, build trust and peak interest.
#5 Keep up the BUZZ!
So, your event is well underway and it’s been a huge success so far, but your work on social media doesn’t stop there! Whether your event is on for an hour or 10 days, it’s important that you don’t let all of the excitement that’s been building up slip away!
What we recommend.
Give your audience real-time updates of your event!
By showing your online community all about what’s just happened and what’s about to happen, you can keep generating a really high buzz about your event and even attract new attendees.
Upload images and videos as soon as you can. The sooner you post them, the better – No one wants to wait 3 days to see what happened! This will help you to generate more engagement, and propel your reach.
Now you know how to market your event just like Barnaby Festival, what will you do next? Why not get a FREE Social Media Review with us today?
It’s quick and simple for you to do, just email team@webpresence.digital stating your interest and one of our team will get back to you ASAP! Alternatively, you can call us on 01625 665044.
