Monthly Archives: July 2022

The Romans Had It Right: How to Use Social Contests to Increase Your Audience

Social media contests are an excellent way to get more followers since they raise brand awareness, boost engagement, and encourage people to learn about your company. Social media contests can get you REAL followers, and lots of them!

Finding your Target Audience

While contests can attract a broad audience, defining your target audience is important. Attracting more leads is not worthwhile if they have no interest in your brand. Think about your followers or audience and find a suitable prize for them. Try to choose a prize relevant to your brand to make it easier to transform participants into potential customers or followers. If the giveaway does not match your brand, participants may only be interested in the freebie and not engage with your business afterward. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Offer a free new product or service
  • Create a bundle of products related to your brand
  • Gift cards for your business

Setting Goals And Choose a Platform

Before creating your contest, take time to understand what social media is relevant to the type of goal you have. For example, if you’re looking to increase engagement, Instagram would be a good choice. However, if you’re looking to drive traffic to your website, Facebook would be a better option.

Pro tip: Make SMART goals for your contest (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound). For example, I hope to gain 1,000 website visits within one week of running a Facebook contest.

Defining the rules

To avoid confusion, you need to define the rules for the contest. How are you going to have people enter the contest? Popular contest entry methods are liking the post, sharing the post, tagging someone in the comments, or submitting a photo/video. If you don’t have a large following, I recommend starting with an easy entry option, such as tagging someone in the comments. This will create followers and engagement since people won’t have to work to submit something. Users must engage with the contest post (and brand) as much as possible to increase their chances of winning. This campaign is ideal for companies looking to boost their social media presence!

Pick the winner

Once the contest is over, it is time to pick the winners! There are a few ways that you can pick winners fairly. If you are running a contest with no answer, but just entries, we suggest using an online tool like Wheel of Names to pick a winner at random. If you have a contest that needs a specific answer to win, choose the person who has the correct answer! Finally, if there are multiple with the correct answer, enter them into the Wheel of Names. 

After your contest ends, track your results and see what worked and what didn’t. Then use these findings to optimize future contests for success. Remember, a successful contest starts with a goal.

Determining that goal can be challenging, which is why an annual marketing strategy is beneficial. Although running your business is what you do best, let us help you create successful contests as part of your marketing strategy!

Name(Required)
What social media services are you interested in?(Required)
Select all that apply

Marisa Lyon
Marisa is the Finance and Marketing Manager at Innereactive, and we are so grateful to have her. She enjoys helping businesses find the right solution for their marketing needs.

 

Plan and Execute a Successful Hybrid Event

What is a Hybrid event?

Hybrid events are the sweet spot between live and virtual events. They allow you to appeal to a broader audience: those that want the in-person experience and those who prefer to enjoy the event behind the comfort of their screen. We’ll discuss how you plan and execute an event like this, the technology should you use, and some hybrid event best practices. 

Prefer to hand off the planning to some experts? We can help! With 14+ years of experience in the event industry, our team is here to ensure your hybrid event is executed successfully. Reach out here for more information!

Planning Your Hybrid Event

Organizing a live event requires more lead time than putting together a virtual-only event because you have to consider the venue, lodging, food & beverage, room layout, etc. Therefore, you’ll need to begin planning for the live event portion first, then incorporate the virtual event technology. Make sure your venue is well equipped with audio/visual and high-speed internet accessibility. 

Marketing

We suggest using social media and email marketing to promote your hybrid event. When doing so, clearly emphasize your event’s accessibility to potential attendees by letting them know they can attend in person or virtually. Highlight the in-person and virtual attendee event experience, so attendees know what to expect and that they’ll be able to benefit from attending this event however they choose. 

Registration

Registration happens all in one place! Set up a single electronic registration system for your event that takes all hybrid attendees to one site. Then, allow them to answer questions on how they plan to attend. This will provide separate attendee lists, allowing you to communicate customized event expectations to all attendees. 

Marrying The Virtual & Live Environment

When it comes to virtual events, we believe live streaming the presentation is the way to go. However, that method might not work for all events. If necessary, prepare pre-recorded presentations for your virtual attendees. If you choose to live stream the event, Zoom has developed wonderful live streaming capabilities. 

Build an events team because the speaker can’t do it all. Allow the live speaker to focus on their presentation to both audiences by providing them with a support person to manage the virtual attendee chat, Q&A and polls. Develop an efficient communication system that allows the speaker to receive online questions and comments alongside their live audience questions. At the live event, designate one screen for the speaker’s presentation and another screen for the support person to manage and present the virtual attendees’ live chat, questions, and poll results. Provide your virtual attendees with access to all of this information so they feel just as included. This is a great way to connect virtual attendees with their live counterparts.

Practice makes perfect! 

Set yourself up for success by testing the live and virtual technology together in a practice session. Can your virtual audience clearly hear the presenter during this audio check? Make sure the live AV is connected to a virtual microphone so that all attendees feel as though they’re being directly spoken to. 

 

Prefer to hand off the hybrid event planning to some experts? Our team is well equipped with the experience needed to ensure your hybrid event is executed successfully.

Name(Required)
What event services are you interested in?(Required)

Jess Hunt
Jess is the Events Manager at Innereactive. After gaining 11 years of event experience in the food industry, she’s ready to take on the optical world. She’s very passionate about helping people, simplifying processes, and creating positive experiences.