There’s no shortage of advice out there about how to improve your company’s social media presence. You likely see “click here to see the BEST tips” and “whatever you do, don’t do THIS” kind of insights out there. And there are literally thousands of tutorials and websites with contradictory suggestions. How’s an event planner in New York supposed to sort the actionable advice from the trendy nonsense?
Keep reading. We did the sorting for you.
We know that in the event planning business, social media is an absolute lifeline to clients, guests, and vendors. You can’t afford to get it wrong. And that’s why we’ve pulled together some of the most relevant suggestions for developing a truly engaging presence on social media for event planners.
1. Start with a Pulse-Check of Your Current Profiles
It’s hard to make improvements if you don’t know where you currently stand. Before addressing any changes or ideas, sit down with your current social media metrics. What’s your frequency of posting? How’s your engagement right now? Can you gauge a customer service response? Track where page visitors come from, where they go, and who they are as best you can with the tools you have. From there, you can develop a social media presence to springboard from for better results.
2. Create SMART Goals for Social
You might already be incorporating SMART goals for other aspects of your event planning business. But it’s also a good idea to create SMART goals for your social media presence strategy. Don’t create a roadmap without a destination in mind. As a refresher, here are some SMART goal examples pertaining to social media objectives:
Specific: “We want Instagram to improve by 20% in response rates.”
Measurable: “We’ll use Instagram Insights to track impressions and bio link click-throughs.”
Achievable: “We will start by increasing engagement by 20% and grow from there.”
Relevant: “We need to impact our Instagram impressions with regular event planning posts.”
Time-Sensitive: “We’ll revisit our status in 90 days to see if we’re meeting our goals.”
3. Identify Your Target Audiences with Personas
Because, as a New York event planner, you use your social platforms to reach varying audiences, it’s a good idea to sit down and create personas to help keep them separate. You can then create social messaging campaigns and strategies that speak directly to those audiences.
Maybe you could use a persona for:
- Corporate event planning decision-makers
- Brides and bride-to-be targets
- Parents for birthdays and graduations
4. Create Conversational Messaging (Be Human)
Here’s a big one that almost every online so-called expert can agree to suggest. Social media, regardless of the channel, is a place to engage conversationally. It’s not the place for robots and tone-deaf interactions. Be human. Create messaging that, when read aloud, sounds like a conversation you might have with your target audience. It’s ok to use slang here and there and even an incomplete sentence if it makes sense. Before posting anything, make sure it sounds and reads like a friendly conversation.
Do: Did you get your invite yet? Check your inbox! The annual ABC event invites have officially been sent!
Don’t: It is with great pleasure that ABC Group would like to invite you to the annual ABC event. The invitations have been emailed.
Do: Another fantastic celebration this weekend! Check out some of the sights and sounds from this seamless holiday party.
Don’t: ABC Group is proud of our recent engagement with ABC Company for their annual holiday gathering.
5. Aim for Relationships & Connections, Not Just Followers
Try not to focus solely on just how well your event planner profiles are doing with likes, shares, and followers. Remember, you’re in the events industry, which means you’re a master relationship builder. Be mindful of comments and community questions that present opportunities for you to jump in and share. Respond to comments on your pages. And for best results, don’t just post statements. Try posting questions and tie in common discussion topics to make your profile page the place to chat for everyone.
6. Campaigns Should Be Helpful, Not Salesy
When you’re putting together your scheduled posts and messaging, remember to keep things helpful and not too salesy. Social media presence is improved when you’re routinely positioning yourself as an authority in your event niche with helpful insights. It’s ok to share what you do and how you do it. Just be sure to avoid crazy sales tactics because no one goes to Facebook or TikTok because they want to be sold something.
7. When You Need a Boost, Get Visual!
If you feel like you’re doing all the right things with your social media but still seem to be missing something, get visual! Do some throw-back Thursdays and share some oldies-but-goodies if you don’t have anything fresh. You can also do some live segments you might call “a day in the life of an event planner.” Get creative and showcase event photos, creative invitations, and footage to show how active and busy you really are.
8. Leverage Your Tools to Maintain Consistency
Ok, so there are so many tools out there worth adopting to help you stay on track with posting schedules, leveraging automations, and improving your metrics. The key is to find those resources that align with your goals for each platform. Only bring on those tools that actually make your social media activity more efficient.
9. Keep Up with It
It's not necessary to be on every single social media platform to be successful in building a strong presence. But those few channels you do select, you need to dominate. Keep up with fresh and regular posts, shares, and engagement. Offer insights and opinions regularly and ask probing questions. When you always have something fresh to say, you’ll always be in their feeds. The second you stop posting, the second they forget you have anything to offer.
So, this list of social media presence improvements is not by any means exhaustive. But it is a great starting point for New York event planners to tap into for immediate results. Try implementing some of these tactics in developing your social media presence. And if you’re still stuck, let the EMRG team help!
