Silent Dance viral event promoted via Facebook

Facebook Events is a free yet effective application that can be used to promote parties, marketing events, product launches and other significant happenings.

The format of the Event is similar to Facebook Groups – there are wall feature where invited members can post, discussion boards, photos, links and videos. Invited friends can be made admin officers in the event page which in turn gives them the opportunity to invite other people in their own networks.

Here are 10 tips for you:

1. Select your guest list

Remember to be appropriate. It´s no use sending out a London party invite to folk in Singapore.
Targeted. Relevant. Respectful.
Make sure you follow these 3 criteria when selecting your invitees. It also helps if you really know them, rather than some person you have never met or talked to. You are hovering dangerously close to spam if you invite your whole database.

2. Don´t go event crazy!

No one wants to receive a gazillion different invites every week. Easy cowboy. Keep events to one a month so you are not abusing this application or your friends’ ´patience!

3. Use a catchy headline

A high open rate and high response rate all depend on how you sell in the offer. If you´d like some help with writing catchy headlines check out this awesome presentation from Times Online Editor Tom Whitwell.
If your event includes a high profile celeb or venue make sure it´s featured in the subject title. You cannot change the title afterwards so maybe practice in draft first.

4. Piccies

Make sure it’s eye-catching and inclusive and connected to the event itself. If you do not include a photo Facebook substitute a giant question mark, ugggh!

5. Compelling content

Write on the wall, start and seed some discussion threads (ask friends to participate to get the ball rolling), add some videos if you own them and as many relevant photos as you want.

6. Invite, invite, invite

Make sure you send a PERSONAL note in the invite. Something friendly, inviting, warm and informative. What´s on offer? Why would this be good for the invitee to attend? Remember the KISS principle: Keep it Simple, Stupid! You can always run some tests too, trying out different copy to different segmented groups. Make sure the country and time zones are prominent.

7. Snip, Tweet or Tiny it!

You may like to use snip urls to send people to the event page or external landing pages or a website. These are memorable urls to replace long Facebook ones. Then make sure you tweet this URL and post it on your status update, profile info, groups, notes or fan pages. Tweet (for Twitter) will even track response so you can measure your event response.

8. The Secret is in the Follow Up

Comment on your event wall yourself and when people reply and RSVP go to their wall and send them a thank you for coming / or sorry you can´t make it note. You can also leave comments on their added photos, videos, discussion threads or wall posts. This all goes into the Newsfeed. One of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your Facebook event is to sending follow up emails to attendees.

9. Maintaining Interest long-term

Facebook currently has millions of members and thousands of event pages. A new event gets created in just a matter of minutes. This poses a challenge on how you can maintain interest on your event. You have to make sure that your friends are aware of your events with enough notice in the short term but do not zone out in the long-term. Update your events regularly. Post a new blog entry.

10. How to avoid spamming warning/alert to your Facebook account

You definitely don’t want your Facebook account to be flagged for spamming. It may take several weeks before your account is reinstated or worse, it will have a lifetime ban which leaves you no choice to but to create another one. LIMIT your seeding. Avoid sending email messages with the same content all the time. Try Social Ads and Marketplace or comment on Birthdays.

Here are the slides for my presentation. If you attended and had questions, now the time to comment.




View more presentations from Julius Solaris. (tags: twitter events

Update: Here’s a transcript of the presentation. Click here for the pdf.

A little bit more indulgence. Hard days of researching to bring you effective tools for your event planning business or career.

Download them on your PC, ipod, pda and read them. I am sure you will get inspired and remember that every little bit counts.

Management

1. Practical Project Management
2. Event Management Tips and Guidance for Success
3. A Project Management Primer or “a guide to making projects work (v2.0)”

Planning

4. Event Planning Checklist
5. Event Planning Guide – Successful Meeting and Convention Planning
6. Inclusive and Accessible special Event Planning

Wedding Planning

7. Wedding Planning Workbook

Fundraising

8. Fundraising Guide for NGOs
9. Volunteer Management Practices and Retention

Networking

10. The 10 Mistakes We Make at Networking Events and How to Avoid Them
11. Smart Networking: End the Resistance, Prepare for Success and Get 24/7 Results Without the 24/7 Effort

Marketing

12. The Effects of Sponsorship and Experience on Customer Attitudes
13. How to Write a Marketing Plan
14. The New Rules of Viral Marketing : How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free
15. Let’s Talk. Social Media for Small Businesses

EventOrb is a nifty event marketing service that allows promoters to do a number of things such as:

- Create unlimited events
- Add photos from the event before or after it has taken place
- Add videos of the event
- Search for events all around the world by proximity, date, time of day or category

They recently re-launched their event calendar, a great service that allows promoters to push event marketing even further, let me quote from their blog:

….So we decided to take our event calendar to the next level by allowing you to create a concise version of an event and even upload a flyer – all of this, without leaving the calendar page. When you’re done, “presto”, your event magically appears on the calendar.

Have a look and tell me what you think.

Link to Event Calendar – EventOrb

Twitter is becoming a big part of events, I suggest you keep yourself up to date.

Link to How to use live twitting and tweets in events

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Many people lately have been asking me to promote their events on social networks. My response to most of them is this post.

Social Media and social networks now offer great potential to cut costs on event promotions. Social media and social networks are just buzzwords to gain your attention.

Well now that I do have your attention I’ll tell you how to do it.

1. Linkedin Q&A

Linkedin has a Q&A section. A lot of marketers are using it to push their own conference/event or to get sponsors. Most of the people ask “Who is attending eventname ?”.

Then in the description they will go for paragraphs stating how the conference is going to be great and how you can’t  miss it. I did it myself. Results were appalling and I felt pretty idiot about it.

My suggestions;

- Be engaging in the question. If Frank Sinatra is performing, be catchy and ask “Would you like to meet Frank Sinatra?”.

- Target the need of attendees. If you don’t have great performers or if your objective is different, you want to make sure to be relevant. “Would you like to network with top professionals?” “Come and join us for an entertaining night at eventname”

- Offer something. Announcing is cool, but what’s in it for me reading? Promo codes, discounts, competitions should be part of this process. If you are restating your press release just use different media, it’s not gonna work here.

- Forward the question to those in your network from the event area or within the relevant industry. If you have a small Linkedin network you may want to read this post.

2. Blogs

You probably haven’t noticed that there are plenty of bloggers out there who offer promo codes on their blogs. It’s probably the oldest model to promote events and web 2.0 has revamped it.

How do you get to bloggers?

- Make sure you do your research and contact opinion leaders.

- Double check that they are already doing it. If they don’t do advertising (such as me), they won’t be happy of your pitches.

- Try to understand the point of view of the blogger, display interest for his/her posts and do your homework.

- Be relevant with the reward. Money is not necessary the best way to reward opinionated people.

- Check the Google Page Rank to optimize indexing

3. Mobiles

Hey I am sure you have some advertising budget there. I mean it can’t always be for free.

If so, a little bird told me that iPhone users are great targets.

- AdMob is doing great in integrating advertising in most of the iPhone applications. It is very relevant and personal.

- I also love the way The Deck is integrating ads in Twitterrific, a popular iPhone application for Twitter.

If money is not an option:

- I suggest you publish your event on Eventful. Eventful does integrate with applications such as Where! that displays events close to you, based on your GPS location. GPS is the social networking of the near future and you cannot afford to ignore it.

4. Upcoming

I can’t believe you don’t know Upcoming!

If you are still using direct mail to promote your events, it will proove ineffective shortly.

Upcoming is a strong candidate to become the platform where you publish your events. Eventful is great, but Upcoming has the Yahoo! power to push events socially and make them relevant for a number of people.

- Publishing your event on Upcoming comes at no cost and a 9yrs old kid is completely capable of doing it.

- You can promote your event within Groups and by choosing relevant tags.

- You can also see how many people saved the event to their calendar to manage demand.

5. Facebook

Ok, you know I am not the biggest fan of Facebook, but I feel very stupid ignoring 90+ Million users. Your target should be somewhere in that figure!

- You have an event section on your Facebook profile, as always don’t be lazy and fill it up in every part. Upload logos, pics and videos from previous or related events.

- The social component is very important. As for the Linkedin example I suggest you send the event to your friends and invite them to spread the word. Now, I am aware a lot of people use Facebook for their personal contacts. I have no particular issue with that, although you are missing out on the gigantic proportion of people doing business via Facebook.

I suggest you keep your personal life somewhere else if you want to be out there and get something out of social networks. My approach is to keep my personal stuff offline, full stop.

If you feel all of the above is not enough, feel free to contact me and we’ll discuss it further. If you have your opinion about it, as always, comments are now open!

Photo by: Cristiano Betta

Smart brands are tackling Meetups to get targeted audience and generate buzz.

I already talked about using Meetups to target your audience and create relevant experiences. Last night Smirnoff provided me a case study and possibly a good review.

The London Bloggers Meetup is one of the most vibrant Meetups of the city. Andy Bargery manages it in an exceptional way.

A great mix of professionals, creative people and hobbyists gather monthly to exchange opinions about their passion.

Several brands have taken advantage of such great mix in the last months, to name a few Berocca and Stella Artois.

Last night Smirnoff displayed a great way to engage on a very personal level.

Apart from free drinks , which are obviously more than welcome, they introduced cocktail classes. The bartender customized the drink according to your blog and your persona.

The location was amazing and the PR agency did extremely well.

Smirnoff was very gentle and did not push the night or show a “do this/do that attitude”. The atmosphere and level of engagement raised to the roof.

Some bullet points for you to enjoy:

- Engage on a personal level
- Free drinks are cool but make me learn something
- Spoil me as an intelligent person and according to who I am
- Be gentle, don’t push the night
- Use Meetups to target opinion leaders, organizers are eager to get sponsors.

Vote: 8,5

Harvest Twestival was held on the 25th of September for the joy of 220 Twitter people. Here is a short review of the event.

Planning

You could definitely tell that the event was mostly planned via Twitter. I remember logging in on the official website 10 days before the event and there was only two sponsors there. As the event came closer and the community started to be interested, at least 6 more sponsors jumped on board. Impressive.

People

My question before the event was how do you actually make sure that there is a good mix of people attending the event? Will there be 14yrs old kids mixed with Social Media experts in their 50s?

This was the single aspect that impressed me the most. The mix was perfect, I could run into good business contacts, as well as in friends or funny people. The twitter community did definitely defined itself at the event as very energetic, full of great ideas and very sociable. Remarkable.

Location & Logistics

Location was the Doon, a trendy Trafalgar square club. @amandita managed everything smoothly. Free drinks were poured efficiently (maybe too efficiently in my case) and the premises served the purpose. Although some peeps were complaining about the music being to loud, there were areas in the back dedicated to talking with no noise whatsoever.

I think that the logistics really reflected the twitter environment. The “everyone section” where noise is obviously there, but also the “you and your friends” area where things are calmer and deeper talks take place. I suggest this formula for those willing to organize one. Successful.

Treats

Another plus was definitely the raffle (with money donated to charity) and really relevant prizes. Moo was on board and that is very cool if you like to be social. Yummy.

What I did not like

Nothing much, but obviously integrating twitter on a screen with live twits was a must and possibly we’ll see that at next editions. Details count.

Vote:8

P.S. If you don’t use twitter and do not have a clue of what I am talking about, start using it right now, improve your business and internet relationships and feel free to follow me.

Other reviews of the event (thanks Pudding relation for the list):

Pudding Relations
TechCrunch UK
Current TV
Diffusion PR
Huddle
Londonist
Sizemore
Benjamin Ellis
Social PRobiotic
One Size Fits One
Jazamatazz
Richard
This Is Now
Fake Plastic Noodles
The A to E
Toodlepip
Girl About Web

Mark just got me in the world of Mikons, a great way to communicate, but most of all a tremendous networking ice-breaker.

When you are networking reaching out to people at events it is always difficult to skim your targets. Most of us do that with appearances but possibly there is no worst method. There is a clear need to identify who is in front of you, at least in a simple way. If I am vegetarian, I want no meat lovers in my network, at least not for the night. Event professionals can definitely help in making things easier.

Introducing Mikons

“It’s an idea in the form of a picture” they say at their website. Nice. I want to know more.

How can you use Mikons to tell your story?

- Create or use a Mikon for your club
- Create or use a Mikon for your clan or guild
- your hobbies: biking, scrapbooking, book clubs, drinking, chess, reading, movies
- your beliefs: religion, political affiliation, gender identification,
- an experience or aspect of your personal story,cancer survivor, entrepreneur,
- a concept you want to share
- your preferences: paper or plastic? coffee or tea? vinyl or digital?

How can I use Mikons in my event?

During event registration, attendees get a custom sheet of iconic stickers that relate to the theme of the event and their personality traits. Event planners can create custom sheets for any type of event and personality traits or professional skills they wish to expose between attendees.

Planning my next networking event it’s definitely easier.

Link to MikonMixers

Setting the time for an event can be a bit of an hassle. Coordinating the needs of everyone involved is a tedious job and there are not many tools to help.

Gathergrid helps in polling the best time in an elegant fashion.

How does it work?

Needless to say that once you have found out your time amiando would be the best method to host your event.

Have a look and tell me what you think!

Link to Gathergrid