Category: Tips & Tricks

When you hear the word hashtags, do you dream of a new delicious, bite-size breakfast treat?

Or do you think of categorizing messages on Twitter?

The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet (e.g., #mybigevent). Twitter didn’t create hashtags; they were created organically by users as a way to categorize messages.

By clicking on a hashtagged word in any message, it will show you all messages marked with that same hashtag.  So you can easily see all the posts on that topic. And anyone that does a search for that hashtag may find your Tweet.

Here are four things to remember to successfully use hashtags in marketing.

1) Be Unique

Hashtags are a great way to engage your customers about your event and allow them to engage with each other. Using your event’s name or a common abbreviation may be a good start, but try to pick something unique and specific.

For example, #SEwebinar allows us to focus in on the specific topic of webinars rather than just using #SaffireEvents for everything. It will also allow others to search for a specific topic much easier too. You wouldn’t want to promote a contest and then make your participants wade through all your other tweets in order to find the contest updates. Continue reading “#Hashtags – They’re not just for breakfast anymore”

Did anyone notice that the Grammys really kicked up their social media presence this year, especially Twitter?

As far as event marketing goes, the Grammys are a good one to watch – and they had their second highest ratings in 20 years.

We thought we’d share some quick tips that we noticed, so that you might be able to use social media similarly to increase your event’s “ratings” (your attendance).

1. They posted their hashtag, #GRAMMYS, everywhere!

2.  They didn’t just post social media options at the Grammys, their Twitter and Facebook URLS (as well as their website URL) were posted well before the event in ads, etc. as well as during the event before commercial breaks.

3.  They told customers what they’d get for following, including behind-the-scenes photos and exclusive coverage. (Sound familiar? We always suggest that events do this – you can do this too!)

4. They let people know they were listening. Periodically, LL Cool J would read tweets on the air, and you could do the same at your event.

5. They were active during the event on social media. This is important so you can direct, guide and enhance the conversation, not just relying on your audience.

Think about your event and how you can use the Grammys, one of the biggest global events, to inspire you to kick up your social media presence this year!

Did you know there is a way your customers can ensure they don’t miss your Facebook posts, without having to check your page?  It’s true!

Previously, when you “Liked” a Facebook page, their stories would appear in your news feed. Facebook tracked how often you “liked” or “commented” on those posts, and if you didn’t interact with them, it would start to weed that business’ stories out of your feed.

This is especially damaging to those of us in the events industry, whose posts are really most pertinent for a short period of the year.  Our customers’ inactivity in December shouldn’t reflect poorly for a June or September event.

Now you can encourage customers to select “Get Notifications” when they like your page so you don’t have to rely on your stories showing up in their news feeds. To see this option, they just hover over your Like button.

Continue reading “Increase Your Event’s Facebook Visibility”

Using your computer:

Remember when Facebook only allowed for one photo upload at a time to your Timeline? Well now they have made your life easier with the new Drag and Drop photo upload tool.

Steps to dragging and dropping your photos onto your timeline:

• Open the folder where your pictures are located on your computer
• Highlight those you want to add
• Drag them into your “Status Bar” on your newsfeed OR profile
• A dashed-line box will appear saying “DROP HERE”
• Drop your photos and watch them upload!

I tried clicking on the image of the camera (as shown below) and it opened my gallery folder but WON’T allow me to drag and drop photos that way. I would suggest not clicking the camera image, but rather dragging and dropping your photos by opening up your gallery folder first.

NOTE: This feature will NOT add them to a photo album. This is simply a Facebook post on your timeline.

Using your smartphone:

This drag & drop feature has not been added to the Facebook App for mobile use. However, I do use an Android smartphone, and have learned that if I go to the Facebook App for Androids and click on the photo tab at the top, it brings up all my photos from my phone’s gallery with check boxes; allowing me to upload multiple photos at once! This is excellent, because I am no longer staring at my phone missing out on the action waiting to see if my picture has uploaded so I can upload another one.