Friday, August 14, 2015

Using Social Media to Promote Events

I went to a new Extension Faculty training earlier this week and heard tidbits of ideas for programs and events that they want to take back to their county residents. They all seemed so passionate about their specializations and the impact they can make on their communities. So naturally, to kill their morale, I came in with the question, "How will you get people to show up?"

Aaaaaand crickets.

They just didn't know. So I came up with a quick list of how they could promote their programs and events using social media. Here's the list I shared with them:

1. Create a Facebook Event - You can share posts, upload photos, invite guests and edit event details. Select the people you want to invite for that event and ask them to share it on their pages. Add a cover photo to make the Event page look more colorful and visually appealing. And finally, pin the event to the top of your Facebook Page!

2. Choose a Hashtag - Do your research to make sure it isn’t used for anything else with hashtags.org. *Keep it simple and consistent* and use across your social networks - refer to it on printed materials!
Use related hashtags for market/industry, but don’t use too many hashtags each post.

3. Go Visual - Generate buzz by hinting at the headline act with a video, featuring the keynote or demonstrating a new product (people love Vine and Instagram videos!). Create event-specific Pinterest boards that tell exciting, visual stories about past events and what attendees can look forward to seeing at the next one.

4. Hold a Contest - Contests help boost exposure and get the buzz going, as well as establishes the event hashtag for everyone to follow. You can promote the campaign to your newsletter/email list and create a sense of urgency with the announcement of the tickets going on sale (or prices going up). You can post it on your social feeds, or cover it in your blog. If you have some influencers and champions (read: colleagues and sponsors) helping you promote the event through their social channels, offer them a giveaway or have them promote your giveaway.

5. Offer a Sneak Peek - I love sneak peeks! Give potential attendees real-time access to keynote speakers, panelists and other experts who will be at the event. If you have resources to spare, host a Google hangout or a Twitter chat (or a whole series of them) to give attendees an idea of who will be at the event and what they’ll learn!

6. Do a Countdown - This isn’t a simple ‘Five days until the event’ status on Facebook. You HAVE to make it visual and graphically appealing. But don’t overdo it – start a couple weeks out, then every few days, then every other day until five days out and then every day. Why? It gets massive involvement and keeps the event at the front of people’s minds without spamming them with the same event details!

7. Encourage Check-ins - Tell people to share your event on their social networks by “checking in” (Facebook, Foursquare).

8. Thank people Socially - Thank sponsors, people on your networks and email lists for attending. This adds an intangible touch that adds to their overall experience!

The biggest takeaway here is that there will never be a "One Size Fits All" for marketing events/programs on social media. These suggestions may not be applicable to your event due to size, timing, platforms you're using, etc. But! You can still be a rockstar... you just have to be strategic about it!

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

The Perfect Post

When your audience reads and listens to the content you produce, they’re not only hearing your message, they’re hearing the voice of your company—your tone, language and delivery (i.e., formal vs. conversational).

So each time they hear your brand voice, they subconsciously size you up, deciding whether you’re a company they can rely on, and more importantly, do business with. In this post, I provide the four things that make up a brand's voice and how you can achieve this within a post. Enjoy! 

UF/IFAS Voice - Friendly, relevant and educational

Character/Persona (Objective, Trustworthy, Caring)
·         Like This: Although the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred five years ago, the effects are still present. A community event will focus on utilizing our experience to better prepare Gulf coast communities for future disasters. Visit http://healthygulfcoast.org/ for more information.

·         Not This: Don’t miss the Gulf coast community event, unless, of course, you don’t love your community!

Tone (Personal, Honest, Humble)
·         Like This:  More than 750 UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences bachelor’s degrees will be awarded this weekend! Are you going to receive one of them?

·         Not This: CALS students are graduating this weekend! Share this or miss out.

Language (Simple, Fun, Savvy)
·         Like This: Whoa! Several statewide meetings have been scheduled for Florida growers interested in planting new, promising citrus varieties.

·         Not This: There are lots of fab stuff scheduled for Florida citrus growers.

Purpose (Engage, Delight, Educate)
·         Like This: #‎DYK Fireweed is notorious for causing a burning sensation when it makes contact with bare skin? The good news: this weed can be controlled rather easily with the right herbicide.

·         Not This: Fire weed is bad. Send us a pic.


The most important takeaway is to establish an online company voice that reflects your business values and matches your customers’ expectations. This will help your business build overall trust. 

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

#UFBugs Campaign Re-Cap

We had an unbe-weevil-able (#punny) time celebrating all things that creep, crawl and fly! Now that we've finally wrapped up with Bug Week 2015, I put together a comprehensive report of our campaign results. To share some of the highlights, here's an executive summary and analysis: 

From 2014 –
·         194.43% increase in Impressions
·         85.45% increase in Unique Users
·         70% increase in Interactions
Twitter -
·         We shared more content and engaged in less conversation (follow up questions, etc.)
o   We garnered less link clicks. Reasons for this include: In 2014, we posted the Better Bed Bug Trap, which was retweeted by Science Friday with 580K followers; People will Retweet without clicking on links; UF/IFAS sent out content with less link variation (i.e., Bug of the Day and #BugWOTD linked to bugs.ufl.edu)

Facebook -
·         We sent 8 posts per day and gained MORE fans! This is significant because we see an increase in Page Unlikes when UF/IFAS sends 4+ posts a day. I'm most proud of the fact that we nearly doubled the number of individuals sharing/talking about our content!

Overall, the campaign ran very smoothly. We finally have a uniformed voice shining through - one that is friendly, relevant and educational. We created and shared lots of great photos - some of the best were of our UF/IFAS leadership with bugs and educational bug posters from the IFAS Extension Bookstore. We received more than 30 photo submissions on Facebook which we were then able to spotlight on Instagram. The best part was hearing feedback from our audience members (from California and Germany) who wanted to participate and learn because bugs were their passions!
To see our best posts, overall performance of #UFBugs campaign and reasons for bumps/spikes along the way, you can see the whole presentation here.


Thursday, May 28, 2015

My First Webinar!

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted! But I wanted to share my webinar on "Establishing a Consistent Social Media Presence."

It was for a UF/IFAS audience, so you'll hear me talk about our guidelines, policies and branding standards for a part of it. Once you get into the steps to creating a strategy, I promise there are some gems that you can walk away with (and examples)!

Feel free to email me or leave a comment below with any questions, comments or concerns after watching.