Why you should use Instagram to promote your event
By Team EtchRock in All,EtchRock,Social Media
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Instagram – A picture is worth a thousand words.
When it comes to promoting your event, a picture is worth a thousand words, so it’s important not to overlook the powers of Instagram! As one of the biggest, most well-known social media platforms globally it’s important that Instagram forms part of your overall promotional strategy for your event.
Instagram is a vibrant, young and trendy social platform, where users interact with photos by liking or commenting on them. One of Instagram’s most powerful features is the ability to hashtag photos. Including hashtags with every photo you post, will ensure they surface to the correct audiences of more than 500 million users and with over 90% of these users falling under the age of 30, Instagram is the best platform for promoting your event to a younger, more engaged audience.
And, it’s simple to do! To post a photo on Instagram, just open the app, select or take a photo, edit it with Instagram’s custom tools, add a hashtag, and share it with your followers. You can even tag a specific geolocation, so your photo will show up in searches for that area.
Here are our top tips for using Instagram to successfully promote your event…
Engagement and reach– Instagram users love interacting with photos and videos by commenting, liking and sharing them. Great news for your event and for your ticket sales! Post the right photo with the right hashtags and you could be reaching some of your most influential and engaged attendees. Instagram users search the app for specific “hashtags” to find content that matches with their interest, therefore it’s important that you use relevant hashtags in the captions of your photos. Also, make sure you are reaching out and engaging with people well before and after the event – it’s no good only being active on Instagram two weeks leading up to your event. This way, you can interact with more people, including past and future attendees and potential sponsors.
Building event hype– Is your event recurring? Whether it’s a few times a year or once a year, take advantage of trends such as the “Throwback Thursday” hashtag by using #tbt on images from previous events to help establish the event with your audience and build hype. If you’re hosting an event for the first time, post photos of your event planning and preparation to give people a glimpse into what happens ‘backstage’.
Sharing on the day – With the launch of the Instagram Stories feature, you can post photo and video content that disappears in 24 hours. On the days leading up to your event, post to your Instagram Story to get ticket-holders excited and to push those potential attendees to purchase a ticket. On the day of the event, take advantage of the Stories feature to post live photos and video.
Use other apps – There are many apps that work alongside Instagram and can help you to further promote your event. For example, you can use Instamessage to privately engage with potential attendees, and Instafollow to do some digging into why you might be gaining or losing followers. There is also an app called Diptic which lets you create a post with several different photos in one frame – handy if you have multiple photos you want to post at the same time.
Create a Story – Make your followers and audience feel involved in the event right from the start. Build excitement before tickets are even on sale by making your posts tell a story. Update your posts after each day of event planning and preparation, right through to and after the actual event itself.
Follow, follow, follow up! The engagement with your followers shouldn’t end as soon as your event finishes. After the event, use Instagram to thank everyone who attended and post photos that were captured. Also, it’s the perfect time to communicate the date of the next event – remember to update your bio with the new date and any other important information.
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Team Etchrock
