1. Drive Traffic – through a variety of methods from online PR distribution to encouraging conversation about the event, the single most important objective of the marketing campaign is to drive traffic to the pre-registration page for the live event.
2. Generate a buzz – encourage word of mouth, user generated content and publicity for your event via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
3. Create a “me too” effect. By encouraging people to spread the word and discuss the event openly on social media platforms, it creates a “me too” effect where people simply don’t want to miss the event that everyone is talking about.
4. Attract sponsors & exhibitors. Aside from the consumer related benefits of a social media marketing campaign for your event, the online presence and discussions about your event can attract sponsors and/or exhibitors to an event.
5. Feedback monitor. You can monitor for feedback and reaction to your online marketing campaign almost instantaneously, allowing you the benefit of being able to rapidly respond to feedback, as well as tweak your campaign strategy based on accurate feedback and stats.
6. Customer relations – By utilising your online presence to monitor social mentions, you can create a direct dialogue with potential attendees and build customer relations which in turn will convert into increased attendance, not to mention an excellent exercise in brand PR and consumer confidence.
7. Distribute content. Trying to cram all the information about an event onto traditional marketing material such as adverts or promotional flyers is near impossible. Social media marketing allows you to “drip feed” the key points of your live event without overwhelming potential attendees.
8. Instant marketing. Online marketing is not constrained by print deadlines or distribution lead-times.
9. Build your ongoing company brand. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow a more personal approach to marketing and as such, with a well executed interactive social marketing campaign, companies can create customer loyalty in their company brand for future events.
10. Run promotions. A great way to get potential attendees to get “involved” and created user-generated content and buzz about your event is to run online promotions encourage users to spread the word with a promotional offer.

Do you have any other reasons to add?  Which of these reasons is the most important to you and your live event(s) ?

Sometimes, the hardest part of our job is not convincing a promoter they need to be adopting some degree of social media marketing for their live event, but why they need to contract the services of a company like Marbella Pulse.

Why pay someone to set up a (free) fan page and a (free) twitter account and simply go on a friend me/follow me/fan me frenzy and bingo, job done?

The simple answer is that, although the vast majority of the tools and services that we use to implement your online marketing strategy are Open Source (free of charge) it is the knowledge and understanding of the interaction of these services that will create a specific marketing strategy unique to your target audience.

Our in depth knowledge of Social Media and social networking sites, as well as our local online connections with key websites and bloggers comes from years of experience in what is a continuously evolving industry.

Yes, we have to concede, that a DIY approach to social media marketing for a live event will bring moderate results.

But before you utter those infamous words “what could possibly go wrong” it is worth considering the following:

• Can you track and analyse your online campaign to see what is working and what is not?
• How will you deal with any negative responses to your event? Will you even be aware of the negative comments to be able to respond to them?
• Do you already have a solid foundation of an online contacts and influencers or will you have to build your network from scratch?
• Have you started your marketing campaign for your live event that far in advance that you have time to climb the steep learning curve, not only of what social media and multi media tools are at your disposition but how to use them effectively?

If you have answered no to any of the above questions, then we strongly recommend that you contact us to discuss a suitable online marketing campaign.

Unless you have been living under a rock (of Gibraltar!) most people have some knowledge of social networking sites, even if their knowledge is limited to just Facebook and YouTube for personal use.  However, convincing businesses that social media is not only a viable marketing tool, but a powerful tool for any business remains an uphill struggle.

The single most common negative remark that I get about using social media for business is “Why would I be interested in what someone has had for breakfast ?”

Granted, some people do like to share every little minutiae detail of their daily lives but I want to share with you this  4 minutes video which drives home the hard-hitting, undeniable facts about the Social Media Revolution that we are living.   If this doesn't convince you well, just enjoy the soundtrack!

Also, the most famous example of a successful social media marketing campaign is Barack Obama’s Presidential Election Campaign.

The facts and data are staggering, although an extreme example of how social media marketing can help you connect with your target audience, and encourage them to virally spread your marketing message.

President Obama may have entered the history books as the first black President of the United States of America.  However, his grass root, user-generated campaign and fundraising efforts also merit a place in history.

Here are some of the facts and figures of his online Presidential Campaign, most notably via his Facebook Fan Page:

Over 3 million individual people donated to the campaign, via social media

More that 2 million social networking users actively participated in his campaign

More that 200,000 fundraising events were created, via social networking sites to support the grass roots campaign.

A total of 6.5 million donations were made online

$500 million in donations were pledged online

More than 13 million people provided their email addresses to the campaign website over the course of the campaign, aides sent more than 7,000 types of  messages

In total, more than 2 billion e-mails landed in inboxes

The campaign website helped create over 2 million user profiles

There were over 400,000 blog entries

People spent more than 14 million hours watching over 1,000 Obama campaign-related videos on YouTube

There were more than 50 million views of Obama Campaign YouTube Videos

1.2 billion minutes of YouTube view time.

Have you used social media to promote your event online?  What social networking sites and other event management tools did you use? Was your online marketing campaign a success?