Best Practices for Event Blogging

Here are a few best practices in event blogging that are very important in promoting your blog.

Promoting the blog, promotes the Event: Once you have created the content for your blog, promote it by sharing on all your social networks sites such as Facebook, Twitter,and if it is a music event Myspace. Emailing a link to the blog to friends and colleagues can help with the promotion of the blog as well by allowing them to post your blog on their social media sites. This can add large amounts of foot traffic to your blog and potential event goers to your event.

Eye-catching headlines:Having a great headline is a must when event blogging but also when blogging in general. you have to make sure you have a title that catches the eye of the reader and makes them want to see what the blog is about. The headline will be used to promote your blog on other social media platforms.

Other blogs: Being familiar with other blog sites in your industry is very important. It can keep you up to date with new innovations in event production and also helps you get your name out to other event bloggers in the industry. This also lets you get a chance to promote your blog on their blog while commenting on their post or allowing them to follow your blog.

Engaging in conversation on social media :It is important not only promote your blog or social media site but also participate in conversations on the site. Answering questions to followers questions and developing a personal connection with yours followers  is great because it makes the follower feel like your blog actually has their interest at heart.  Also having conversations on other sites makes their followers interested in you and can help you get more followers for your site.

Great Visuals: In event blogging visuals are very important because it gives a face to the event itself. Pictures or videos of previous events can be placed on the blog to show what the event is all about. Also having pictures of celebrities and people who will be speaking at the event will attract interest to the event and blog.

Links: Links are great in event blogging because it can establish credibility to your post. Links also provide you with sources related to the event your are promoting, for example the actual event website or social media sites related to the event.

There are many other best practices in blogging but in Event blogging but I feel the most important practice is continuously promoting your blog. Just look at the below and see what happens when he followed these practices!

 

Find more resources at those links or in these books :

• 15 Things Event Organizers Need To Know From Mary Meeker’s Annual Internet Trends Report
• How to create a blog (beginners guide)
• Blog setup: 40 practical tips
• 7 More Writing Tips for Event Bloggers
• Promoting your event online without irritating people
• Schaefer, Mark W. The Tao of Twitter: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Digital.

 

Social Marketing Brands and Risk for Events

Promoting your events are very important in getting people to your event and to make a profit. Using social media is an important to way to receive a good outcome of your event. There is still no guarantee that people will actually show up to your event. If the attendance is low at your event it might also hurt future events your company and cause damage the brand reputation.

A risk event promotion companies also have in social media is the identity theft of their events. With random people marketing your event can be very damaging to company’s reputation. If a person who isn’t affiliated with your company is promoting your event it can hurt your events public image especially if there is a bad reputation behind the person who is operating the social media account. It is also harmful when the operator of the account is giving out wrong or false information, especially when referring to important facts regarding the event such as event time, location and participating guest.

When assigning someone to handle your company social media site please make sure they have people skills. This is very important because if they don’t have people skills you are at risk for losing regular event-goers and potential event-goers. It is best to have someone who is well-verse in social media and knows how to keep people on your site and brings them to your site.

Another risk that is associated when promoting your event is others badmouthing your event. Badmouthing an event gives the reader a bad perception of your events and your company. Nowadays people rather showcase all the negatives then list any positives. These people are dangerous to your blog. As the blogger we should have open communication with the readers and the people bad-mouthing your events. Try to figure out what their issues were with past events and see what the company can do in the future resolve them. Unfortunately, you will still have those who do not play well with others in and out the blogosphere but communication will alleviate a lot of the issues .

“While paying attention to positive and negative feedback is very important, it is not enough. What also matters is acknowledging and responding to this feedback. This is how you nurture your relationship with your audience.” ― Cendrine Marrouat, The Little Big eBook on Social Media Audiences: Build Yours, Keep It, and Win

For More on Risk and Mistakes with Blogging:

Social Media’s Dark Side: Bad-mouthing Because You Can

Five Blogging Mistakes To Avoid

Site and Events change

 

Hello everyone!!

I recently moved to Boston, Mass from New Jersey!! With this move I will be changing the name of the site and type of events I will be discussing. Starting Sunday May 18th I will showcasing events in my blog in the New England area e.g. Mass, NH,CT,VT, ME and RI.

Thanks

Event Mobile Apps: Eventbrite

As I discussed in my blog last week Eventbrite is a new website that is very helpful in setting up your event. Eventbrite is an online ticketing service that allows event organizers to plan, set up ticket sales and promote events. To get my tickets for events I usually use Eventbrite or Stubhub.  With Stubhub I buy tickets for sporting events or concerts. With Eventbrite I would buy tickets for conferences or local events around my area.

The Eventbrite app is free app that you can get from Apple’s App Store or Android’s Goggle Play for your phone, Ipad or Tablet.  while in the app you can explore popular events and customize your app to showcase events that interest you. When linked to social media you can see which events your friends are going to, and share events that you are going to or interested in potentially attending. This app also lets you keep track of all your tickets in one place, and add events to Calendar that you will be attending. Also when going to an event you will not need a paper ticket can just show  your ticket on the phone at entry to the event. 

Eventbrite has developed two applications that are primarily for the event organizers, they are  “Entry Manager” and “At The Door” . The mobile app, Entry Manager is available for both Iphone and Android but At The Door is only available on the IPAD. Entry Manager allows organizers to see the number of tickets sold to a particular event, the number in attendance, and offers several ways to check in the attendees. The mobile app also links back to the event organizer’s page on the Eventbrite website. This provides post-event details and an attendee summary report letting the organizer know exactly how much people can to event and how much revenue was made throughout the event. The At The Door app allows the event organizer to check in attendees, as well as purchase tickets and process credit cards on-site only by an IPAD.

There is almost no competition in other event production apps but in the ticket purchasing department Eventbrite is behind Stubhub which tops the online buying and selling of tickets. The European Eventbrite site and mobile app may have some competition in Europe with Billetto. Billetto has more of an emphasis on event discovery. Billetto was only launched in January so Eventbrite may soon have some major competition in Europe.

Eventbrite recently started integration with WordPress to publish companies’ blogs or manage their content. This integration will help event organizers to automatically sync their upcoming events to an events calendar, highlight featured events in their WordPress blog. Event organizers can also sync the Eventbrite widget in the blog and buy tickets for the events through the WordPress blog. You can access the blog in the mobile app or online on your computer.

Eventbrite has received many awards throughout its 8 years in operation. Some awards include the Small Business Commerce Association 2009 Best of Business prize (Internet category) and the Bay Area “Best Place to Work.

Check out Eventbrite’s 2013 end of year review below, which showcase the number of app users, tickets sales and other highlights from the company

http://blog.eventbrite.com/eventbrite-2013-year-in-review/

I recommend you all try Eventbrite or the Eventbrite app. Check it out and tell me what you think!

 

Social Media in Event Production

Many Event Production Companies use YouTube to showcase their previous events just like how Heart of Dixie does for their Bubble Bobble Event

I remember when I got my start in event production as an interned a few years ago I was in charge of social media. Things are a lot different Myspace was the big social media on campus, Facebook was new and Twitter and Instagram wasn’t out to the public yet. Now we have plenty of social media platforms to promote our events.

Social media in event production is very important is used a lot. From promoting an event from my company to promoting a small get-together at my house social media is always a great outlet to promote from. Event Production companies use social media to update information to potential event goers of their event. Facebook and Twitter gives the potential event goers the opportunity to discuss the event with other event goers. These sites also give the production company the opportunity to showcase pricing, location and important people who will be attending the event.  It will also be important to put up pictures or videos of the event in the past or something promoting the event.

 Event Production companies like Live Nation and IMG use social media and this helped their event get notice. I’m constantly on the Live Nation sites seeing what’s new the company  and what events are coming soon in my area. These companies use a lot of pictures and videos in their sites.

Myspace is now a music-based social media website. When promoting your event on Myspace it should be an event like a concert, music performance or event with a musical performance artist present.

Eventbrite is a new website that is very helpful in setting up your event. Eventbrite is an online ticketing service that allows event organizers to plan, set up ticket sales and promote events. Eventbrite also publishes the event across Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and other social-networking tools directly from the site’s interface. Eventbrite also has a mobile application that helps you update your event and lets you search for events in your area or events coming to your area.

 

Something that seems like it should be common sense when promoting an event is sometimes left out when promoting on social media, even though it is the most important thing to remember. Don’t forget to list the LOCATION and TIME. 

I believe social media works well with event production and don’t see it changing anywhere in the future!!

The video at the bottom is explaining an easy way to promote your personal or corporate events by using social media.

 

 

2 Great Social Media Tools

There are many great tools we use in social media but 2 I find to be useful and easy are TweetDeck and the everyday camera. TweetDeck is  a social media dashboard application for management of Twitter accounts. TweetDeck was launched in 2008 and aquired by Twitter in 2011. TweetDeck gives you a dashboard that organizes and displays separate columns of activity from your Twitter  accounts.  Originally TweetDeck  could also be used for sites such as Facebook, Myspace Foursquare, Google Buzz( discontinued 2011)and LinkedIn. In 2013 TweetDeck stopped supporting Facebook and stopped supporting the other social media sites in 2011.  If you are a business or a regular social media user who has multiple accounts TweetDeck is for you.

The camera is a great invention. It helps us capture stories with our photos and videos. These stories really needed when doing event blogging. Instagram and Snapchat are sites the picture-based so the camera would be a must.  On the sites Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and LinkedIN  the camera is not need but it enhances the social media experience. I believe the camera is the most important tool in social media.  Without the camera it would be hard for people to know who exactly they are talking to. This is especially important when interacting on dating social media sites.  

Twitter is made extremely easier to manage with the help of numerous tools such as TweetDeek and Hootsuite but it also has other internal tools to help your efforts while on twitter.  2 internal tools I feel that are great for Twitter are the Twitter Advanced Search and Twitscoop. The Twitter Advanced Search option is the best way to narrow tweets about a targeted topic. Twitscoop lets you search and follow what’s buzzing on Twitter in real time.  Out of the two internal tools I like the Twitscoop best because it lets you see what multiple people are talking about in real-time and for me that real-time connection is feels more authentic.These are my thoughts on these tools, feel free to tell me what yours are or your opinion on Twitscoop, Twitter Advance Search, TweetDeck or  the camera.

For more on Social Media Tools these are a few sites to might get your interest:

• The 39 Social Media Tools I’ll Use Today
• 20 Free, awesome social media monitoring tools