Influencers – does my event need one?

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Following on from last week’s post, How to use your speaker to better market your eventEvent Industry News wanted to explore additional marketing tactics. Influencers, when utilised correctly, can offer a huge boost for engagement, pre-, during and post-event.

Identifying the right influencer for your event can be tricky and it is understandable to chase after the one with the most Twitter followers. However, reaching out to figures who have a genuine interest in the success of your event can prove much more advantageous, even if their Twitter following is significantly lower.

Promotional content for your event endorsed by people with millions of Twitter followers, such as celebrities, will no doubt get your event on boundless timelines. However, if your celebrity has no real concern or attachment to your event, then why would their followers? Your reach will no doubt be wide, but your ROI will not correspond with this.

Likewise, appealing to an industry trendsetter just to utilise their followers may not have much effect on your sales. Questions you need to pose to yourself first include: is their content merely clickbait? Do their posts receive much engagement? Do they engage with their followers?

Event marketing company, Snöball, advises organisers to turn to the “people who are actively involved” in their event to help promote it, stating that these “micro-influencers” can elicit high engagement from a small group of relevant people.

To find your next influencer, you need to engage in plenty of research. Have your ear close to the social ground – find relevant hashtags online and see who is using them the most. As long as these posts aren’t clickbait, you may find the community in which your event belongs. Industry-specific LinkedIn and Facebook Groups can also produce an active audience that may benefit your event.

Also, research your potential influencers. Dig into their professional profiles to see with whom they frequently engage. It is important to have the right people to surround your event.

Your previous events could also bear valuable information that could sway your decision. See whose exhibits/speeches were most popular and approach these people to be involved again. You may also use tactics such as polling to discover who is highly-respected in the industry to create more leads.

Essentially, don’t be dazzled by millions of Twitter followers – quality is far more important than quantity when choosing the right speaker for your live event.

The content for this article was provided by Snöball’s ‘Complete and ONLY Guide to Event Influencer Marketing’.

Molly Hookings
Author: Molly Hookings

Molly joined the editorial team in March 2019. She has several years’ experience working in broadcast and journalism, as well as marketing and PR. Past experience includes working for the BBC and independent publishing houses. If you have a story you think Molly might be interested in, please email: molly@eventindustrynews.com