What Are The Best Ways To Promote Events?

Photo courtesy of fuschia foot on flickr

At a lot of networking events that I attend, I’m often  asked “what are the best ways to promote events?”. Well I wish there was one simple answer to that question. There are a few ways that I have found to be very effective in today’s fast paced world.

Using Social Media to Promote Events

Using social media to promote events is one of the better ways to get the word out. Which type of social media account to use depends really on how you set them up for your use.

LinkedIn is generally for your professional connections. It’s today’s resume. Our LinkedIn connections are people that we network with professionally or people that share the same work interests. So the use of this account to promote events that your company is hosting would be ideal.  However if it was a family or purly social event, then LinkedIn may not be suitable.

Twitter would be another good way of communicating to your followers about your event . And because Twitter is a real time application, this account, in addition using it to promote events, is also best used to provide reminders and updates.

Facebook was originally considered as a way to connect with your friends. However, as we’ve seen lately, it’s now very common to find company pages on Facebook. It really depend on how you set up your Facebook page whether or not your “friends” are the ones that you should be promoting events to.

The main message about utilizing social media to promote events is to be sure you know what you want each of your accounts to do at set up.  Be sure to keep your professional life separate from your personal life. I’ve seen many accounts where the person is trying to be all things to all people. That will not work. Especially if you’re using these accounts to promote events that are part of your professional life.

Using Event Software to Promote Events

So now you have the event details ironed out and you know who it is you want to invite from your social media accounts. You now want to consider how you are going to manage the registration and payment (if part of your event) process. Depending on the size of your company, you may not have the budget to pay for event software. Well, that’s ok, there are many free sites that you can use to promote events. Sites like EventBrite (www.eventbrite.com), for example, also give you the ability to collect money and send tickets directly to the registrant.  It also can connect directly to your social media accounts for organizing.

Do your homework at the beginning. Make sure you know what you’ll need the event management software to do for you. Then go out and review each of them.  Even ask colleagues on your social media if they have a recommendation.