Did you know that Instagram is an incredibly popular platform for promoting events, with over two billion monthly active users? According to Statista’s January 2023 data, Instagram holds the fourth position among the most-used social media platforms globally.
Instagram offers a huge and diverse potential audience for your event promotion strategy, as well as various features and tools that can help you showcase your event features and benefits, and generate more interest and engagement for your event on Instagram.
Whether you’re planning a corporate conference, a music festival, a charity fundraiser, or a local community gathering, Instagram can be your key to reaching a wide and engaged audience.
In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the essential steps to promote an event on Instagram effectively.
Article Outline
14 Steps on How to Promote an Event on Instagram
Before the Event
Before you start promoting your event, you need to know what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Do you want to get more people to come, find more customers, or make your brand more popular? What sets your event apart from others and what can you offer to your attendees that they will enjoy and remember? These are some of the questions you need to answer before you start your Instagram event promotion journey.
By defining your goals and your unique value proposition, you can create a more effective and focused marketing strategy that will help you reach and engage your target audience.
Step 1. Create Instagram posts with reminders for your event
In the first step of your Instagram event promotion, you should focus on crafting engaging social media posts that serve as reminders for your event page. Instagram posts should captivate your audience’s attention, providing essential details about the event, such as date, time, location, and any exciting highlights.
Tips for creating posts with reminders for your event:
- Utilize eye-catching visuals that showcase your event’s value proposition, features, benefits, or personality.
- Create captions that express curiosity, enthusiasm, and urgency.
- Use hashtags, geotags, and mentions to increase your reach and visibility.
By following these tips for creating event reminders on Instagram, you’ll effectively build anticipation and excitement, ensuring your audience doesn’t miss out on your upcoming event
One of the most effective ways to promote your event on Instagram is to use hashtags. Hashtags will help you build a community around your event and make it easy for your target audience to find related content.
Tips:
- Keep your event hashtag short, relevant, and easy to remember.
- Check if the hashtag is already used or has any negative associations.
- Encourage early buzz by posting teaser content with your event hashtag
For inspiration, consider the following example of an event hashtag:
- #TechCon2023
- #DanceInParallelWorld
- #UniteThroughMusic
- #EcoConsciousJourney
- #CulinaryCanvasExperience
Once you have created your event hashtag, you need to announce it to your audience and encourage them to use it when they talk about your event on Instagram.
Step 3: Collaborate with the influencer
Influencers are Instagram or other social media users who have a large and loyal following on their social media and can influence the opinions and behaviors of their audience.
You can leverage the trust and credibility of influencers to increase your brand awareness, reach, engagement, and conversions. Tap into their network and expertise to create valuable and authentic content for your audience.
Tips:
- Choose influencers whose followers align with your target audience.
- Use tools like BuzzSumo or Upfluence to identify and analyze influencers based on their followers, engagement, niche, location, etc.
Once you have a list of potential influencers, you need to reach out to them and pitch them your collaboration idea. You need to be clear and concise about what you want from them and what you can offer them in return, whether it’s a sponsored post, a takeover, a giveaway, or attendance at your event.
Photos are the most common type of content on Instagram and they tend to get more likes, comments, shares, and saves than other types of content.
Therefore, you need to share eye-catching photos that showcase your event’s value proposition, features, benefits, and personality. You need to use high-quality images that are clear, bright, colorful, and relevant to your event topic, niche, industry, or location.
Tips:
- Invest in professional photography or use high-quality smartphone cameras.
- Create a content plan that includes event-related images, behind-the-scenes shots, and engaging captions.
- You can use tools like Canva or Adobe Spark to create stunning photos for your event promotion.
- Tools like VSCO or Snapseed to edit and enhance your photos with filters, effects, stickers, text, etc.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CwQK7pSgkf4/?img_index=1
An example of a good event photo is from TEDx, a global event series that features inspiring talks and ideas. They use photos to introduce their speakers, share their quotes, and showcase their events. They also use consistent branding, colors, and fonts for their photos.
Step 5: Host an Instagram Live Session
Instagram Live is a feature that allows you to broadcast live videos to your followers and interact with them in real-time.
You can use Instagram Live to promote your event by:
- Hosting a Q&A session with your speakers, sponsors, partners, or guests
- Giving a sneak peek of your venue, facilities, or amenities
- Sharing some tips or insights related to your event topic, niche, industry, or location
- Announcing some special offers or discounts for your event
- Creating some hype or excitement for your event
An example of a good Instagram live session is from HubSpot, a marketing software company that hosts an annual event called INBOUND.
They used Instagram Live to interview some of their speakers and guests such as Michelle Obama, Issa Rae, and Reese Witherspoon. They also shared some behind-the-scenes highlights of their event.
During the Event
The event promotion on Instagram doesn’t stop once the event starts. In fact, this is the best time to showcase your event’s value, excitement, and impact to your followers and potential attendees. Here are some steps to follow during the event:
Step 6: Do Live Coverage
Instagram Stories and live streaming are perfect tools to do live coverage of your event and share the highlights, behind-the-scenes, and moments that matter with your target audience.
Tips:
- Schedule stories and live streams in advance using tools like Later or Sked Social to notify followers.
- Promote them through graphics created with tools like Canva or Adobe Spark.
- Choose optimal times and locations by analyzing audience activity and preferences through tools like Iconosquare or Sprout Social.
- Engage with viewers by asking questions, answering comments, and encouraging sharing.
- Save and share content after it ends, extending its lifespan through highlights and repurposing for other channels like YouTube or Facebook.
An example of a good Instagram story and live stream coverage is from Web Summit, a technology conference that used stories and live streams to share the highlights, behind-the-scenes, and interviews from their event. They also used interactive elements such as polls and questions to engage with their audience and drive traffic to their website.
Step 7: Engage with Your Audience
Another way to promote your event on Instagram during the event is to engage with your audience and make them feel part of the event. You can do this by
- Responding to comments and messages from your followers and attendees. Tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to manage your comments and messages in one place.
- Host contests and giveaways that reward your followers or attendees for engaging with your event.
- Create anticipation with countdowns that remind your followers or attendees of the upcoming sessions, speakers, or activities at your event. You can use tools like Countdown Timer or Countdown Sticker to create countdowns for your social media posts or stories.
Elevate Instagram event promotion by encouraging event attendees to share their experiences using your event hashtag. User-generated content (UGC) is like the backstage pass to your event’s online world, encompassing everything from fantastic photos and videos to shoutouts and reviews created by your awesome attendees or followers.
So, how do you turn this digital treasure trove into event promotion?
- Share the love: Repost UGC with your event’s hashtag or when they tag you.
- Challenge accepted: Run fun user-generated content campaigns to inspire users to join the content party.
- Show it off: Flaunt UGC on your posts, stories, and website like it’s the star of the show.
- Give back: Thank your UGC creators with shoutouts, prizes, discounts, or even free tickets for your next event promotion.
Here are some handy tips for reposting and sharing user-generated content:
-
Seek Permission
Before sharing user-generated content, reach out to the creator. You can slide into their DMs or employ tools like Repost or Regram that make requesting permission a breeze.
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Credit Where It’s Due
Always give credit to the UGC creator. Tag them or mention them in your post’s caption or comment, showing appreciation for their content.
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Add Your Touch
Elevate the UGC by adding your own flair. Write a caption or comment that ties it to your event’s unique value, features, benefits, or personality.
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Streamline with Tools
Simplify the process using tools like Bazaarvoice or Pixlee. These platforms help you collect, curate, and showcase UGC on your website or landing page, making it easier for your audience to engage with the content.
An example of a UGC campaign is Adobe Summit5, a digital marketing event that used the hashtag #AdobeSummit to collect and share UGC from its attendees. They also created a landing page that featured UGC from their previous events and encouraged users to register for their upcoming events.
Step 9: Announce and Highlight Your Event
Wrap up your event page on Instagram with a bang by showcasing your event’s success and impact:
Start by crafting a post or story that distills all the event’s key takeaways, statistics, feedback, and accomplishments into an engaging summary, and drawing your audience into the experience.
Share the best of the best with a lively highlight reel or video montage that brings to life the most unforgettable moments of the event.
Show your gratitude by sending out heartfelt thanks to the speakers, sponsors, partners, guests, and attendees who contributed to the event’s success. Keep the positive vibes flowing by inviting feedback from your attendees, allowing you to fine-tune your future events for an even better experience.
Finally, offer a sneak peek of what’s on the horizon or recommend other exciting events your audience might find enticing, ensuring they stay excited and engaged.
Step 10: Networking Opportunities
Instagram can be a valuable platform for attendees to network. Encourage them to connect with one another by creating special event-related content and discussions.
Tips:
- Promote networking sessions or activities during the event through Instagram posts and Stories.
- Create event-specific groups or hashtags for attendees to use when connecting with one another.
After the Event
Sharing event recaps, highlight reels, and key takeaways after your event is a powerful strategy that achieves various essential objectives. It lets you spotlight the event’s value, excitement, and impact, while also celebrating its achievements.
Furthermore, it offers educational value to your audience and encourages their active engagement by creating a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) and it generates excitement and anticipation for your upcoming events.
To implement effectively, consider creating summarizing posts and videos, expressing gratitude in your captions, using relevant social media tools, and promoting your future events.
Step 12: Show appreciation to your attendee
A great way to promote your event post-conclusion is by expressing appreciation to your attendees. The simple act helps build trust and loyalty, boosting customer satisfaction, and generating positive word-of-mouth. It also encourages repeat attendance and registrations.
You can convey your gratitude by sending a personalized thank-you email or message, offering discounts or freebies for future events, featuring them on your posts or website, sending branded gifts, or inviting them to join your online community. Key tips for doing this effectively include being authentic, timely, specific, and creative.
Step 13: Request feedback from the attendees
To enhance your future events, seeking feedback from attendees is crucial. Using such an approach helps you grasp their needs, preferences, and expectations while pinpointing your event’s strengths and areas for improvement. By learning from both successes and mistakes, you can enhance the overall quality, value, and satisfaction of your events, leading to increased loyalty, retention, and referrals.
The key to success lies in being clear, timely, respectful, and responsive in your feedback requests and analysis.
The final way to promote your event on Instagram is to announce future events or cross-promote other events that align with your audience’s interests. With this tactic, you can keep people interested in your events while also cultivating leads for future ones. It also provides opportunities to build partnerships and collaborations with like-minded event organizers or sponsors.
You can execute this by sharing posts or stories introducing your next event or a related one, offering teasers or sneak peeks to highlight their value, providing incentives like discounts, featuring testimonials or reviews, and inviting your audience to stay updated through your online community or newsletter. Using compelling visuals, enthusiastic captions, and strategic hashtags, geotags, and mentions further amplifies your reach and impact.
Frequently asked questions:
How to evaluate your event promotion on Instagram
To measure the effectiveness of your event promotion, track key performance metrics. Engagement rates, following growth, hashtag usage, website clicks, and conversion rates for ticket purchases or registrations are a few examples.
How to create a content calendar for your upcoming event on Instagram
Plan your Instagram content in advance with a content calendar. Keeping your audience interested throughout the event advertising process, helps ensure a regular and well-planned posting schedule.
Boost your Instagram Promotion with Event Espresso
Elevating your event’s success through Instagram promotion is a game-changer. When you define clear objectives, engage your audience, and leverage Instagram’s arsenal of features to build excitement and post-event engagement, you’re on the path to triumph.
But here’s the secret sauce to supercharge your event promotion: consider incorporating cutting-edge event management platforms, such as Event Espresso. Event Espresso features offer seamless solutions for online ticketing, event registration, and fostering meaningful connections with attendees. It’s the turbocharge your Instagram event promotion strategy needs.
So, seize the opportunity, set your event promotion in motion with Event Espresso. Watch your next event become an unforgettable triumph. Start your free demo now!