Event planner checking social media on her phone.

Business

The Busy Event Planner’s Guide to Social Media: Where Should You Focus?

Whether or not you use social media in your personal life, you’re going to have to incorporate it in your business if you want to maximize your outreach. Some clients may only find you through your social media channels, especially if they’re younger.

But running your business keeps you busy enough—who has time to maintain up-to-date Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube accounts, on top of actually doing your job?

Don’t worry—you can still successfully use social media to promote your business without spending your whole day updating twenty different accounts. Here are our tips for figuring out your focus to get the most out of your social media use, headache-free.

First, know your audience

Audience in a conference room.

Different forms of social media attract different audiences. If you want to focus on events for older clients, like milestone birthday or anniversary parties, a site like Instagram—most popular with a younger crowd—might not be your best bet. Do a little research into what age groups tend to gravitate towards which platforms before diving in; there’s no point wasting time on one site when the same content posted to a different site could be way more effective.

Facebook

Arguably, Facebook was the first truly global social network. While it started out as a platform limited to college students, it’s now expanded to include over 1 billion users from various countries and age groups.

The Pros:

The Cons:

Twitter:

Twitter is another major social media phenomenon, with over 140 million users across the world. With Twitter, your posts are limited to 140 characters, so it’s good for sharing short announcements, as well as links, photos, or videos.

The Pros:

The Cons:

Instagram

This application is growing in popularity, particularly with younger crowds. It’s an image-based platform that lets you snap a photo, apply a filter to edit it, and share it with your friends and followers.

Wedding table dining spread with roses.

The Pros:

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Pinterest

Pinterest is another image-based platform. It’s relatively new, but it’s seen a real explosion in popularity. You can use to “pin” images to your online board, re-pin images from other users’ boards, “like” photos, and leave comments.

The Pros:

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The bottom line

Like we said before, the most important thing to think about when you’re creating a social media presence is who your audience is and how you can target them most directly. That being said, sites like Instagram and Pinterest are great ways to get inspired and keep up with the latest trends, so they might be worth having even if they don’t generate much attention for your business.

For achieving a wide reach, Facebook and Twitter are great tools. But if the thought of maintaining and regularly updating two major social media accounts has you tearing up your jam-packed day-planner, don`t despair—third-party sites like Hootsuite let you manage posting, messaging, and activity for multiple accounts through one handy interface.

Consider checking out LinkedIn, too. Once you’ve set up your profile it`s relatively low-maintenance, but it`s an easy tool for networking with other professionals.

For more great tips on getting (and staying!) ahead of your competition, check out this post!

One response to “The Busy Event Planner’s Guide to Social Media: Where Should You Focus?”

  1. With all there is to consider while planning an event, knowing the right Social Media channels to use to reach the people that need to attend is crucial to making your event a success. I appreciate the information you’ve shared.

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