May 30, 2017
Pre-planning is absolutely vital to effective social media before, during, and after a live event. The recent evolution of live social has led to a mass increase in live video streaming and events are a huge part of that.
According to Livestream.com live video is more appealing to brand audiences: 80% would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts.
In 2016 breaking news makes up 56% of most-watched live content, with conferences and speakers tied with concerts and festivals in second place at 43%.
All the data says it’s effective, Facebook Live videos are watched 3x longer than videos that aren’t live, and they provoke great engagement, driving comments at over ten times the rate of non-live videos.
With all that in mind we have written this short form checklist to help you plan the broad strokes of your social marketing and live coverage of just about any live event.
Stage one; Pre-event social marketing.
Before the event your goal is usually going to be gaining awareness, getting more registrations, fuelling the hype machine around attending the event and why missing out isn’t an option.
- Assign roles to key members of your team
- Create your timeline or project schedule
- Create visual assets and templates for all channels
- If appropriate create LinkedIn & Facebook event pages
- Identify social profiles of key attendees, partners and speakers
- Monitor and measure pre-event conversations and engagement
- Identify or own any relevant hashtags
- Have your location mapped out for any paid media or GPS based targeting
- Gauge competitor activity and identify conversation sentiment
Stage 2; During the event
During an event few marketing channels offer the same live experience that Social can offer. With the current live social offering available even TV is left in the dust. Form Facebook live and twitter polls to Google hangouts and Snapchat lenses there are hundreds of live opportunities to take advantage of.
- Video/Photograph/Interview attendees, keynote speakers, sponsors, and influencers live at the event.
- Post the event schedule and reminders of key sessions
- Post relevant quotes or stats from speaker sessions or round-tables
- Prompt engagement with open questions or polls targeted at attendees
- Engage with the audience both at the event and those on social who did not attend
- Monitor event hashtags, key profiles, and partner or influencer mentions
- Respond and engage with the relevant social conversation
- Host live Q&As, vox pops, live walk-through of event or specific sessions.
- Compile your key posts into a coherent stream using a tool such as Storify
Stage 3; Post Event
- Summarise and wrap up the event
- Measure conversation and engagement
- Upload edited version of video content to relevant sites (YouTube, Vimeo etc.)
- Follow up blog posts with key points or statements
- Connect with influencers or vocal profiles from the event
- Direct social traffic towards follow-up materials or upcoming events
- Identify key moments, significant tweets or quotes
- Measure and report on social conversation, attendees chatter, hashtag use, influencer and client engagement
- Thank attendees, keynote speakers, influencers and partners
Post event social marketing can be your last chance to truly own an event online. Curating content and providing photos or recorded video of key elements is essential to successful coverage and promotion of past and future events.
Hopefully this has been useful to you, check out our 60 Second Social video series for more on live event social media.