What Are The best Social Media Platforms For Promoting Live Events?

If you were hoping that this article would present to you the one true king of all social media platforms to promote your live event, then I am sorry to disappoint but unfortunately there is no such platform out there that out-trumps the rest. Each live music event is different, from the artists that play, to the location, to the people that attend and therefore each social marketing camping is going to differ and the platforms that work best with follow the same rule.

However, below I have outline 3 of the best social media platforms that you can use to promote your events and the benefits of using each of them...

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1: Facebook

Facebook is the most used social media platform in the world with over 2.27 billion monthly active users (Statista, 2019). Facebook is great for promoting live music events as it allows you to create event pages, competitions, surveys and use Facebook analytics to see fan engagement for each of your posts. It also connects directly to ticketing websites such as "Eventbrite" so you can sell your tickets through Facebook directly by connecting the two platforms (Eventbrite, 2018). If I was stranded on a desert island and I could only take 1 social media platform to promote my live event, then Facebook might have to be the 1!

2: Instagram

The photo based social media platform is the second most popular social media platform amongst millennials (Nanji, 2017). Instagram is great for creating fan engagement as it allows you to create hashtags that your fans can then use and share, this makes it the perfect platform to encourage your artists to share promotional content on and for your customers to use on the night of the event and also provides a great opportunity for you to share sneak peaks of things like your venue. Instagram influencers are now said to be the 3rd most popular way for young people to look for recommendations so if you can get one of them to post about your event then the results could be extremely effective! (inkling, 2015).

3: Snapchat

Due to the nature of this platform it is great for documenting your live event. Snapchat drives the sense of FOMO (“fear of missing out”) that spurs ticket sales and buzz for future events, as customers who are at your event document their experience. According to a survey by strategy online, 60% of millennials make reactive purchases because of FOMO (Eventbrite, 2014) so encouraging customers to share their experiences on platforms like snapchat can be extremely effective, increasing attendance to future events. Snapchat also allows you to create geofilters. If you don't know what this is, they are graphics that show up when you access the social media app in certain locations. You can create your own geofilter and submit it to snapchat to use at your live event, this may be your logo or something related to the theme. Geofilters are great as they encourage people to take photos and then share them to friends which in turn publicises your event and increase that much needed FOMO! (Snapchat, n.d)

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...As I previously mentioned there are lots of other social media platforms you can use to promote your live event, its just about finding out which one best appeals to your target audience!

References

Eventbrite (2014). Millennials: Fuelling the Experience Economy. [online] Eventbrite, pp.2 &4. Available at: http://eventbrite-s3.s3.amazonaws.com/marketing/Millennials_Research/Gen_PR_Final.pdf [Accessed 1 April. 2019].

Eventbrite. (2018). How to add your Eventbrite event to Facebook and boost registrations & ticket sales. [online] Available at: https://www.eventbrite.com/support/articles/en_US/How_To/how-to-publish-your-eventbrite-event-to-facebook-and-sell-tickets [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

inkling (2015). Uk Millennials Report. [online] inkling, p.15. Available at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/566824117086d7d425e48806/t/575e873f8259b5bbefd5e6da/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2019].

Nanji, A. (2017). The Most Popular Social Networks With Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. [online] MarketingProfs. Available at: https://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2017/31792/the-most-popular-social-networks-with-millennials-gen-x-and-baby-boomers [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

Snapchat.com. (n.d.). Create Your Own: Snapchat Filters & Lenses. [online] Available at: https://create.snapchat.com/org/guest/purchase/choose-product?utm_campaign=ODG_G_Search_UK-IE_EN_Branded_EM&utm_content=Snapchat_Geofilter_EM&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_term=snapchat+geofilter [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].

Statista. (2019). Global social media ranking 2019. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ [Accessed 1 Apr. 2019].