What if you threw a party and nobody came? This is the fear that every event organizer and sponsor has to conquer when they decide to participate in or help launch a convention or conference. Thankfully, we live in the future. This means that you don’t have to have a huge budget for marketing and promotional materials for your event. There are ways to make an impact with your promotions for a reasonable price range, and some promotional avenues are even free!
Your Own App
There is a lot to be said for utilizing third-party social media and networking apps, and we’ll get to that soon. First, though, we want to make sure you know how important it is to have your own app. Specific mobile event apps are more important than ever. Having an app that is specific to your event is incredibly important. It allows you to create your own event-specific social and news sphere. The coding doesn’t need to be complicated. You can even hire a company to create the app for you for much less than you might think!
Social Media Apps
Everybody knows how important the big social media apps are when you want to create a profile for yourself online. By now, you likely have Twitter and Facebook accounts for your event. You might even have an Instagram account or a Snapchat geofilter set up. These avenues are great for broadcasting news and updates for your event. Broadcasting isn’t the only way to get these social media apps to work for you.
Remember, social media’s whole point is to provide spaces in which people can be social. A great way to get people interested in and excited for your event is to set up spaces for attendees and guests to interact with each other before the event is underway. Creating a Facebook group for attendees and guests of your event to meet and get to know each other, ask questions, etc. Is a fantastic way to build buzz for your event.
Going Beyond
Social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are just a few ways to help communicate with potential attendees. You can also utilize group chat and productivity apps, like Slack. XOXO, a creative tech conference based in Portland, Oregon utilized Slack to great success in 2015. The organizers created a “mothership” style Slack and then encouraged attendees to create their own sub-groups–kind of like real time bulletin boards and forums–to get to know each other. The result was so successful that they kept the channel going after the conference ended and expanded it the following year!
Admin-Specific Apps
Building buzz and enthusiasm is not the only way in which apps can be helpful to event organizers. Group productivity tools, like Asana, Basecamp, Trello, etc. are fantastic organizational tools that can be used to manage different aspects of the event’s administrative tasks. These tools are great for keeping people on the same metaphorical page regardless of their locations but are particularly helpful for administrators and event organizers who are trying to build and organize an event over long distances.
Mind Your Details
It’s easy to get caught up in all of the tech that event organizers can use to make their events more user-friendly and administratively streamlined. Do not forget, however, the one common denominator used by apps of every stripe: the Internet. Having your own event-specific app and using apps to coordinate and promote your conference or convention will only work if your event’s Wi-Fi and power availability can accommodate all of the different devices that will be accessing the Internet.
The isolated event is a thing of the past. Today events start ramping up long before their doors officially open. App help communities form and continue on before and long after an event is over. Which apps have you found to be most helpful in organizing your event?
