Twit101

image credit streamishmc

If you didn’t read Promote Your Event For Free Part One, go back and take a look. It touches on how to find people to promote your event to.

In this part, I am going to talk about some of the  tools and methods you can use to promote your event. Many of these tools allow you to track the effectiveness of your efforts as well.

Piggyback Your Promotion

Piggybacking your promotion is a widely used technique in which you use an already publicized event such as a local sporting event, concert or a cause to gain more exposure for your own promotion.

You don’t need to officially affiliate yourself with the event. By simply giving away concert tickets for example, to a person who retweets using your hashtag is a great way to get people to spread your message. In some cases a local business may be interested in donating a small prize in return for traffic to their site. You can be very creative here. You want the message to be as viral as possible; free stuff is usually a good way to get people’s attention.

On a side note, teaming up with another business who can accentuate your product or services can be a winning situation for both of you.

Hold A Tweetup

Holding a tweetup is a good way to meet some of your supporters. These informal gatherings are typically a social meeting rather than a business oriented gathering.

Some groups meet on a regular basis. Having reoccurring meetings will better the chance of gaining a larger attendance.

Often times business like restaurants, bars or hotels will allow you to use their location to hold an event. This would be super easy if could benefit the host location in some way. The bigger the event, the easier it is to gain access to these types of “donations”.

Make a Video or Podcast

Making a short video or a quick audio clip talking about your event is a really easy way to set yourself apart from many local businesses.If you upload your video on Youtube for example, you can use the supplied code to add the video to your blog or website.

If you have a webcam, you can make a video. If you would like your video to have a little better production value, make sure you have good lighting and a halfway decent digital camcorder.

As for the audio, there are many good inexpensive USB microphones available for under $50. Just like most things, the better the desired production value you want, the more the equipment will cost.

Follow Related Keywords

More than likely you are already using a desktop application like Seesmic or Tweetdeck. If you prefer not to download anything, Hootsuite, Seesmic Web or Monitter are all good options to track keywords and hashtags related to your event.

The idea here is to find out what people are talking about and where they are congregating online. It may not be Twitter and Facebook. Check out blogs, forums and other social sites mentioned to see where the cool kids hang out.

Join the Conversation

Once you find them, start replying to people. Make sure you don’t step into a long conversation thread to tell them about your upcoming event. Put links to it in your signature, give helpful information. Once you get more familiar with some of the regulars,  you will have a better reaction when you talk about an upcoming event.

With any kind of social site, you will need to build a relationships, make friends and help others before you ask for anything. I have seen some say you should stick to the 12-1 ratio. What I mean by that is for every tweet you make to promote yourself, you want to send 12 promoting others.

When you target a few people to help, they will hopefully notice you and so will their followers. It shows you are there to be a part of the group, not just sell to them. To make this easier, make a private Twitter list or a group of targeted people in your desktop or web app. When you see any of them promoting something like a blog post, sale or really anything, help them out by talking about it. Topics gain popularity when they are talked about.

Email Campaign

Contrary to what some people say, email marketing is still an effective way to get your message out. Don’t spam people, make sure you give them relevant information in an easy to scan format. Bold what is important, short paragraphs and get to the point right away. Save all the fluff for the additional information link you should be attaching.

While At the Event

Tweet about the event @ the event and encourage other to do the same.

Use Hashtags to follow the conversation. If you use a service like Hootsuite to track keywords or hashtags, you can embed one of these tracking columns on your website. This way, frequent visitors can see what is happening.

By asking everyone to use a specific hashtag, it will be a breeze for you to pick out random people for a giveaway, track what people are saying to get realtime data about the event as it happens. Think about it, if your event is tanking, you will know why and have the potential to make changes on the fly.

Tracking the Buzz

Aside from hashtags, many short URL services let you track links. Most will show how many clicks each link receives. Using different links allows you to test the receptiveness of you audience at certain times of the day or day of the week and to what types of headlines work best. Some services will even allow you to schedule messages for later. This means you can spend 30 minutes in the morning preparing

All of this will take a little time and effort, but in the end it is well worth the time spent.

Have Main Hub

Throughout both parts of this article, I have referenced adding things to your website or blog. In some cases you maybe having a onetime promotion or donation drive you don’t have time to create a dedicated site for. In these cases you can make a simple site using Google sites or a free blog on Blogger, Typepad or WordPress.com.

Having a main hub for people to get more information and updates is pretty crucial. Having even a basic page or two gives your efforts a more legitimate appearance. This is a good thing since you will be linking back to information on it.

Leave a comment with any ways you have promoted an event online.