Social media has been a game changer for almost every industry. The marketing world in particular was taken by storm, and there is information abound on how to harness the power of social media to your advantage.

One particular facet of marketing has been left relatively untouched in the axiomatic sea of ‘how-to’s.

Event marketing has yet to be handed a doctrine of social media guidelines. Luckily, we have a lot of knowledge to impart in in this area.

So, what are the best ways to use social media for event planning?

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Get the word out – early!

WOMM, or word of mouth marketing, is key to getting organic mentions about your event.

WOMM has been named the most valuable form of marketing, and the one that is most trusted by consumers.

You need to start posting at least one to three months in advance, being sure to @mention any influencers and notable attendees.

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Tease them with content

In the weeks leading up to the event be sure to keep your audience’s interest piqued with teaser content.

Announce any contests taking place around the event and create custom designed social profile branding. Create a link between the social profile and the event webpage with visuals and a hashtag.

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Find your influencers

Getting influential advocates excited about your event is key to reaching a wide audience.

@hina_paracha Hi! Can you join us for our Brandwatch Influencer Event this Thursday? http://t.co/fjNdby7gUZ pic.twitter.com/FBfTKOri8r

— Ruxandra Mindruta (@RuxandraRux) June 22, 2015

Social listening tools like Brandwatch are a useful means of finding out who these influencers are. When hosting our Masterclass event we wrote a simple Query to see who was Tweeting about the event, and made sure to engage with them.

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Create a community

Especially if your event is recurring, success is directly linked to creating and fostering a community of event-goers or people who aspire to go to your event.

This generates excitement and goes hand-in-hand with pushing out content that your fans want to read.

SXSW for example has event ‘alumnae’ and parts of their website dedicated to them. They push out alumni content on their social handle to keep their community interested and enriched.

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Feed on FOMO

We are a generation of people who hate missing out on something!

Be sure to constantly post on social during the event and record as much sharable content as possible (interviews, session recordings, etc).

These can be edited into clips and released after the event, possibly being a key factor in a non-attendee’s decision to attend your next event.

Who hasn’t seen a great recording of a concert the next day and seriously regretted not going?

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Who can say no to free swag?

Picture yourself choosing between two similar products. One offers you $10, one does not. The choice becomes simple, right?

Applying this logic to events marketing, if your swag is awesome, your event automatically becomes 100 points cooler than others.

Added bonus: if your swag is photo-worthy, your attendees will do the promoting for you.

We tracked our Masterclass event in Brandwatch Analytics and were pleased to see some influential people praising our swag.

HOLD UP. I’m all about this #brandwatch master class – great info and legit swag. #brandwatchtips pic.twitter.com/uvRMIQMl2n — Frances Rubio (@FrancesRubio) April 10, 2015

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Track your event like a campaign

The same way you might develop a hashtag and a variety of content around a campaign, do the same for your event.

Setting up Queries in a social listening tool to monitor conversation around your event will help you understand in a concise, smart way, what your attendees liked and disliked, who was the most vocal, who was the most influential, what was the demographic split of those Tweeting about your event, and much more.

All of these insights can play key roles when planning your next event, or when deciding which to attend.

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We hope these tips help you take a more social-led approach when planning your next event. Have you got any other top tips to share? Comment below or Tweet us at @Brandwatch – we love to hear from you!