How to get your event trending on Twitter.

Great guest post by Sam Kelly, Tweeting Goddess and Irish Tech News contributor.

Having organized a few events over the past few years, I wanted to share some of my tips with you. Twitter is a great way to create a buzz while your event is going on. The more you trend, the more likely people will see your event.  People at home will be thinking…’darn it, I wish I had known about this event, I will sign up to the newsletter to find out about the next one.’

I recently did the Women’s Inspire Network event in City North Hotel and here are the stats

Stats from Tweetbinder for #win2016

We also have a little video of the tweets on the day from Tweetbeam.

Potential sponsors and journalists will also be watching. So to make sure you get on the radar of more people than are actually attending your event, follow these simple steps:

1. First things first. You create a hashtag for your event. For example if your event is called ‘Global sales event’ you could invent the hashtag #Globalsales2016

Be creative but keep it simple and make sure you get your brand in there. Does the hashtag give an indication of what the event is about? Start building relationships with people who are attending by chatting with them on twitter before the event even happens!  You can create a community of people using the hashtag in advance of the event also by running a competition. ‘send us your photo of your trip to Dublin’ or your ‘morning coffee’ on the way to the event and be in a draw to win a session with one of the speakers or something like that.

Be creative, when having a coffee ….ask the staff to do a little bit of coffee art!

2. Next you make sure the hashtag is on the website and in all printed material.Encourage attendees and sponsors to use the hashtag.

Have the hashtag twitter stream on a screen for example using something likeTweetbeam or Hashtracking These will show you who is tweeting using the designated hashtag and will encourage others to tweet as let’s face it we all want to see our logo or photo up on the screen at the event! Also track your hashtag. You can track how many people used the hashtag and even the reach of it! Try Hashtracking for this orTweetbinder. What does this do? It gives you data so when next year’s event comes around you can present your event and show the amount of people who used the hashtag and the brand awareness around it.

3. Have a competition on the day for the ‘best selfie’ or ‘best Tweet’ of the day. This is a great way to get attendees engaging with you and give your event more of a chance of trending. Depending on what other events are happening on Twitter, the more people who use the hashtag the better. Also the more Re tweets your hashtag gets, the chance you have of re tweeting. We had a competition BEFORE the Social Media Summit….we offered a prize of a strategy session with Brian Fanzo and one lady tweeted that she couldn’t sleep with the excitement! She won!!

Winner of Competition before the event

4. To encourage Retweets designate someone to be in charge of the event twitter account on the day. That means having someone who will take photos of attendees, quote important information and also keep people who aren’t at the event in the loop as to what is going on. This is fabulous for awards. I have often watched a hashtag for awards ceremonies wondering if someone I knew won an award. By following the twitter account and if you have someone good running it, I know what category is next….and then who has won that category.

5.In advance of the event, make sure the person running the account and live tweeting on the day has a running order. Also give them the twitter handles of the people who are speaking or in the finals of the awards so that they can have the tweets prepared in advance.

6.After the event, thank all of the sponsors and attendees, put up photos and videos….keep the momentum going. Perhaps run a competition for the best blog post after the event.

If you do all of the above and make sure all attendees, speakers and sponsors know what the hashtag of the day is, you have a huge chance of trending. If this all seems like too much work, you can hire me to do all of this!!

Contact me: tweetinggoddess@gmail.com

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.net or on Twitter: @SimonCocking