Saffire Blog

Choosing the Right Social Media for Your Event

Social media is arguably the most powerful tool for engaging with your audience to boost attendance at your event. However, not all platforms are created equally, and your plan for promoting your event on social media should differ.

An effective social media promotion will include connecting with your followers before, during and after an event. It should be interactive, fun and informative, but planning and executing content is only half the battle. You’ll need to next choose what platform to post on!

Facebook

With more than 2.8 billion daily active users worldwide, Facebook is the tried and true platform for promoting content. Be sure your organization has an updated company page with contact information and event details. You can create a specific event page to serve as an additional space to post a link to tickets, announce pre-sale codes or connect with fans. Facebook also allows you to narrow your audience based on numerous demographics to ensure the highest return on investment.

Do remember to connect the corresponding business Instagram account and don’t ignore comments or messages for too long.

Instagram

A must-have in your social media toolkit for posting fun behind-the-scenes, featuring attractions, showcasing vendors and gathering user-generated content from attendees. Since Instagram is entirely visual, you will want to have graphics ready for any important event information or announcements. You’ll also want to be sure your content is being shared to its full potential with Instagram’s features, stories and reels. With stories, photos and videos shared are set to disappear from your profile, feed and messages after 24 hours or can be added directly to your page with highlights. Through reels you can easily create and edit short videos to dramatically drive engagement and expand the outreach of your event.

Do use a timely hashtag to encourage others to post their experiences and don’t forget to tag your location in posts!

TikTok

The #foryoupage (#FYP) algorithm is one that hasn’t been cracked yet, but with the right post you can get your content in front of hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of eyes. TikTok has the possibility to give you the biggest possible organic reach, much more so than traditional social media channels like Twitter and Facebook.

Do join in on viral trends or dances and don’t take yourself too seriously!

Twitter

Although not always used for event promotion, Twitter still utilizes a powerful tool: the hashtag. Tweet your event details, where folks can purchase tickets and a countdown to the event! Engage with fans by posting interactive polls, hosting a related Twitter space and using an event-specific hashtag to encourage others to post their experiences. And don’t forget about live tweeting! Throughout the event share highlights, what performances may be happening, or keep attendees up-to-date with any last-minute announcements.

Do monitor what people are saying about your event and don’t #overuse #hashtags.

Snapchat

Often overlooked, the interactive features on Snapchat are an excellent way to engage with attendees and even garner some user-generated content. Design a simple frame or sticker that represents your event and submit it (for free) to Snapchat’s Community Filters. Once approved, your unique or branded filter can be used by anyone in the immediate vicinity. Feeling extra creative? Explore the creators’ platform Lens Studio 2.0 to design your own augmented reality (AR) camera effects where the possibilities are virtually endless.

Do host a short form to answer any questions people may have about attending your event and don’t be too salesy, Snapchat is very informal in the field of social media.

Whichever platform you choose, consistency is key when it comes to social media promotion. Create an editorial calendar and schedule posts to go live in the days and weeks leading up to your event.

New Year’s Resolutions for 2023

Whew – what a year it’s been! The world continued to open up, people re-discovered their love for live events and many of our clients experienced record-breaking numbers. As we finally take a breath and collect ourselves from the whirlwind of 2022, we can look to 2023 as a fresh opportunity full of possibilities.

6 Resolutions for the New Year

Refresh your marketing plan: Now is a great time to review your marketing plan! What worked in the past year and what fell short? What channels worked best? Was your budget stretched too thin? Look back at what was impactful over the last twelve months and what you’d like to carry over to 2023.

Expand your network: This is especially true given the industry we’re in. Whether your event is short staffed, you’re having an on-site emergency or you just need someone to vent to, having these connections can be a lifesaver! Dedicate time to networking, explore industry associations and start working on building those relationships.

Try something new: An excellent resolution both personally and professionally! Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is one of the only guaranteed ways to facilitate growth. So whether it’s using a digital marketing tool you’ve never tried before or implementing something totally out-of-the-box, take the new year as an opportunity to try something new.

Energize your email marketing: Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools in your toolbox, so be sure you’re utilizing it! Have you set up a platform or system to automate emails? Are emails being sent out regularly before and after an event? Now is a great time to set some goals for your email marketing in the next year.

Go mobile-friendly: We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, mobile matters! Try navigating through your site on a smartphone and see what looks wonky or what issues are appearing, odds are your customers have already noticed. Optimize your website for mobile to improve your ranking with Google and keep your customers happy while they’re shopping.

Be more social: Engaging with your audience online is fundamental not only to marketing your event to the public, but connecting with communities like businesses in your area or other professionals in the industry. Practice writing in your brands voice, try something fun like an Instagram scavenger hunt, start curating content, research emerging trends, choose the platforms best for your business or event, and above all else, start posting!

Another chaotic and magical year of fairs, festivals, and events is in the books! We hope your year was full of fun, we can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store for live events.

Happy New Year!

Recession-Proof Your 2023 Event

Whether or not we enter a full-blown recession next year, your event should be selling advanced tickets.

Rising inflation, high gas prices and a slowing housing market and a potential recession have been dominating the headlines recently–but what could that mean for you? A major way your fair, festival or event can hedge against a possible recession hurting ticket sales is by putting tickets on sale earlier! Why wait?!

Advanced tickets sales are trending

Fairs, festivals, events and concerts have been pushing ticket sales earlier and earlier. Buying a ticket to a concert that’s over a year out doesn’t seem so unreasonable anymore! Many attendees look online for early-bird deals or want to ensure they have a spot reserved by the time their favorite event rolls around.

Why sell in advance?

Offering tickets in advance, potential recession or not, is a worthwhile effort for your event. Here are our top five reasons to start selling earlier:

It’s money in the bank: Every ticket sold before the gate opens puts money in your account. This can help with your budget or expensenses even before a single guest arrives!
Data, data and more data: There is so much data that can be collected from early ticket sales–valuable data you can use to create a marketing campaign that resonates with your target audience.
Spread out the paycheck: A major reason event-goers purchase their tickets in advance actually has to do with budgeting. When folks are looking at their entertainment budget before coming to your event, they don’t really consider money spent in advance as part of what they will spend once they are at your event.
Breakage: As we all know, not everyone who purchases a ticket to your event is actually going to redeem that ticket. But that’s still extra money in your account! The earlier tickets are put on sale, the higher your breakage will be.
Better planning: Knowing in advance how many people are planning to attend your event, you can make better revenue projections and ensure you have enough volunteers or staff on hand.

Sell Advance Tickets Successfully!

When posting tickets in advance, there are a few key steps you can take to ensure you’re getting the most revenue from your efforts. It’s important to make advance tickets desirable so people actually make purchases.

One way is by offering discounted prices for tickets that are purchased in advance and online. Even after realizing advance sales discounts, you can essentially have much of your event paid for before an attendee walks through the gate. Offering group or family packages is another great way to offer value to guests, getting them into the event ready to purchase food, beverages and shows. And don’t forget to highlight the biggest advantage of advance purchasing: skipping the line at the box office or gates!

With so many creative solutions for maximizing revenue from your ticket sales, our top recommendation is always selling tickets early and online!

Using TikTok to Promote Your Event

If you’re not already on TikTok, it’s time! Get the scoop on event marketing with the most downloaded app.

With roughly 656 million downloads in 2021, the app’s popularity has skyrocketed. Its short and engaging videos can suck you in for hours, and it is an incredible platform to promote your upcoming fair or event!

Why is TikTok Important for Event Marketing

If you still think TikTok is ‘just for the kids’—consider this: in February 2022 alone, TikTok was (again) the most downloaded app in the world in February with a total of 41 million downloads.

Looking to maximize reach while driving engagement? Even if you’ve never made a post before, your content can still be seen by millions of people! Additionally, your window for increased engagement is much larger, with TikTok increasing your content shelf life by 90 days. It’s a great way to start building the hype around your event and engage with potentially new customers.

Join a viral trend: The fastest (and possibly easiest) way to get seen is by jumping in on a trend. From popular audios and hashtags, you can put a spin on a current viral trend! Strive for authenticity and find those viral popular trends that would lend well to your event marketing campaign.

Host a takeover: Have someone else take over your account for the day! Get some perspectives like backstage access or a “day in the life”. If you’re hosting a state or county fair, you could ask 4H guests to post for an entire day, showing pictures of the animals being shown or results from a competition.

Collaborate with an influencer: If there is an influencer in your area, consider reaching out to them. If you can swing it, offer comped tickets in exchange for a post featuring your event. Not only can this introduce your event to their followers, but increased engagement will lead to higher views.

Run a contest: Encourage attendees to participate with the promise of a possible prize! Offering something like free or upgraded tickets for the winner can drive engagement while potentially giving you additional content to repost from your account.

Don’t Forget Instagram Reels: Born shortly after the rise of TikTok, Reels is Instagram’s take on short, vertical videos. Use the content created for TikTok and upload them to your Instagram account to connect with your existing Instagram audience.

Post a personalized hashtag: Post videos with a hashtag unique specifically to this year’s event. Be sure to share this hashtag on your different platforms, so your existing audience can get in on the fun!

Creating a TikTok plan

Before you post, have a plan in place! As you are planning your promotional campaign for the event, schedule time to film and post TikToks! Before the event, work on building the excitement for attendees and during the event capture what makes your fair or concert so fun. While the average length of a post on TikTok is just 15 seconds, you can take advantage of the 30-second or 1-minute feature to get a bit creative. As a team brainstorm some fun trends to participate in, and even storyboard out your ideas. That way when it comes to filming, you’ll be more than ready.

As social media trends continue to grow and new platforms become popular, it’s important to stay cognizant of engaging opportunities. Start connecting with fans from your events and start your TikTok account today!

Stay Organized with Trello

Are you having trouble staying organized? Is your wall calendar just not keeping up in the digital world? Here at Saffire, we’ve started using Trello to stay organized! Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and … Continue reading “Stay Organized with Trello”

Trello uses “cards” which contain each of your tasks or ideas. In each card, you can add members, labels, checklists, any attachments and even a due date. Each card is filed under a list and can be easily moved from list to list. For example, you can have a “to do” list, “overdue” list and a “completed list” and easily move the cards to their appropriate list. Cards and lists are then housed under boards in order to stay organized and keep your projects separate. You can also add an unlimited number of members to a Trello board in order for multiple people to collaborate.

Trello boards can be extremely effective as both a meeting agenda and task tool. We use trello boards to list out our agenda in cards. Then, we take notes under each agenda item, assign a task to someone and put a due date on that action item.

Another great way to utilize Trello is to place your marketing editorial calendar into a board. You can switch to a calendar view and anyone on your team can see what posts, emails or content is scheduled to be published so your team can plan accordingly, whether that means graphic design or preparing copy for social media.

For our event planners, this can be an extremely powerful tool to help keep your event prep work organized. Tasks can easily be seen by your team such as when tickets go on sale or entertainment announcements are made. As we all know, plans can drastically change and Trello makes changes easy! Simply drag & drop a card onto a new date on the calendar and the due date will update automatically.

There are endless uses for this powerful tool! Let us know if you use Trello and how you use it!

The Three P’s to Gaining Sponsorship

Earning the Digital Sponsorship Dollar (& Keeping It!) Do you know what businesses and organizations are spending in sponsor dollars these days? Do you know what it would take for YOU to see some of those dollars? The fact is, sponsorship continues to rise! The amount of revenue is growing, but the problem is the … Continue reading “The Three P’s to Gaining Sponsorship”

Earning the Digital Sponsorship Dollar (& Keeping It!)

Do you know what businesses and organizations are spending in sponsor dollars these days? Do you know what it would take for YOU to see some of those dollars? The fact is, sponsorship continues to rise! The amount of revenue is growing, but the problem is the people who are getting that money are receiving less. More money is being spent, but it’s being distributed between fewer and fewer people.

“The sponsorship pie is growing, but being cut into fewer pieces.” – www.sponsorship.com. The largest slices are reserved for properties that can meet the high standards required by a new breed of corporate partner. These are the people who ask for SMARTER partnerships. Once again, the growth rate for sponsorship spending will surpass outlays for traditional advertising in North America. Projection for spending in 2015 is $21.5 billion!

At Saffire, we believe in the Three P’s to gaining sponsorship – Prepare, Personalize, & Provide. Preparing to work with sponsors in a digital age, Personalizing by coming up with creative ideas to market to your sponsors so they will want to partner with you and Providing them with results they need so they will want to work with you again.

Prepare to Partner with Sponsors

Consider yourself a salesperson because sponsorship is sales! Start early in the year, network, do your research, and understand your value! Be smart about what you’re offering your potential sponsor. Basic research before you meet with them is HUGE. Finding the right fit for your company can be a little tricky, but you’ll want to look for “natural fits” by things like: customers, products, geography, past sponsorship experiences and people who work there. Make it clear to them that you’re taking their partnerships seriously and you’ll do whatever it takes to gain their trust! Things like adding a logo to your site at the time of the sponsor meeting can make all the difference. How can you use your sponsors that will be the best partnership for everyone? Sometimes you’re paying them, using their product and they’re giving you sponsorship dollars. Find things you can do to support your sponsor’s business. Saffire’s tip is “People will find a way to work with people they like”. Leaving a good impression and creating bonds with people goes a long way.

Personalize your Packages tailored for each Sponsor

It’s important to make your sponsors feel special. A good rule of thumb with sponsorship packages is to give more than what they’re expecting. This will make them feel special, which will go the extra mile when your event comes around again and they are considering who to partner with. In order to do this, it’s essential to know the most basic components of your organization, which can be provided as benefits to sponsors. You can add value by offering year-round marketing, hospitality, and onsite event promotion

Put sponsors on your online! Create emails, social media shout outs, online advertisements or consider naming the event after your Sponsor. You can also have a dedicated Sponsors page on your website that features your list of sponsors. If you’re looking to get a new website and don’t have quite enough funding for it, this is a fantastic way to get it! Most digital marketing doesn’t cost you anything but time and effort. Give your sponsors space on your YouTube channel, add sponsor logos to print-at-home tickets or name your entire event after a sponsor. Other ways you can feature your sponsors offline are by creating sponsored charging stations on the event grounds, photo booths with sponsors or utilizing their services on fairgrounds.

Provide Measurable Results

Sponsors like data. Sponsors have to have that data to justify why they’re giving you so much money year after year. The best ways to show sponsor ROI are Google Analytics & Audience Survey. Audience Surveys assist and measure ROI, show recognition, attitude and the image you’re showing. Google Analytics is great, but it can be really hard to narrow down once you get it set up. Everyone should be able to get this data from your website. Show sponsors things like Total visits, Audience overview, visits on the Sponsors page of your website, engagement and clicks to leverage ideas for more success in the future.

We believe that the Three P’s – Prepare, Personalize and Provide will help you gain sponsorship (and keep it!).

FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER IN A NUTSHELL – Guest Blog from Jen Smith Social

Finally, Facebook’s new secret tool is finally out! Facebook recently announced the launch of Business Manager, a tool that helps brands, app developers and agencies manage accounts, Pages, apps and permissions all in one platform. MANAGE FACEBOOK EASILY Business Manager simplifies Facebook advertising efforts by integrating all aspects of Facebook marketing into one easy-to-use tool. … Continue reading “FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER IN A NUTSHELL – Guest Blog from Jen Smith Social”

Finally, Facebook’s new secret tool is finally out!

Facebook recently announced the launch of Business Manager, a tool that helps brands, app developers and agencies manage accounts, Pages, apps and permissions all in one platform.

MANAGE FACEBOOK EASILY

Business Manager simplifies Facebook advertising efforts by integrating all aspects of Facebook marketing into one easy-to-use tool. This is useful for users who manage their own marketing or on behalf of a brand. For example, if the user is part of an in-house marketing team or their own personal business.

This tool also takes Facebook to a more professional level, since it separates personal from business experience. While people can use a personal email and login to access ad accounts and Pages for management, you won’t need to friend other team members at work just to collaborate. Business Manager allows you to also get notifications using a work email instead of personal address. BONUS: You wont need to switch from your personal account to “use as page” whenever you need to work on your ad campaigns.

BUSINESS MANAGER TOP FEATURES

1. View Pages, ad accounts, apps and permissions linked to your brand

2. Add people on your team who can access campaign assets and collaborate on tasks.

3. Manage external partners, like agencies or Preferred Marketing Developers (PMDs), that are integrated to your Pages, ad accounts and apps

4. For professional advertisers, you can organize all of your clients’ Pages, ad accounts and apps permissions, as well as collaboration permissions.

5. With Business Manager, you’re in total control of all aspects of your Facebook business advertising. You can add, delete and manage ad campaign accounts linked to your business

As well as add or remove permissions to employees and external partners for your ad accounts, apps and Pages.

The tool is very intuitive and designed to help users without a technical background work efficiently. With just a few clicks, it reduces time spent on setting up and managing pages in addition to campaigns. Team members and partners can easily view and organize what’s going on behind the scenes of a Facebook account. I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check out the tool for yourself to see if your business can benefits from features.

Right now Business Manager is only available to select users in the US. Facebook plans for a full roll-out internationally over the next couple of weeks.

To learn more or to get started, you can visit business.facebook.com.

So what do you think? Will you use Business Manager? Do you have access to Facebook Business Manager yet?
Leave a comment below!

* Images from Facebook for Business