The 3 Stages of Social Media Marketing for Events

Social media revolutionized the way people experience events. From promoting concerts to organizing protest marches to simply throwing a party, social media platforms are important tools for communicating and mobilizing people.

For nonprofits, social media marketing is now an instrumental part of growing an event. And while social media is often thought of as in-the-moment and spontaneous, effective social media marketing requires forethought. When planning a social media campaign for your nonprofit event, it helps to break it down into phases. Read on to learn about the three phases of social media event promotion and how to succeed every step of the way.

Social Media Marketing: How to Handle Your Event Promotion

1. Before the Event

Supporters will not attend your event if they don’t know about it. That fact is at the core of your first phase of social media event promotion. In the weeks (or even months) leading up to your event, use social media to spread the news and register people ahead of time.

To get started, identify …

Your Platforms

You can’t succeed without focus. There are new social channels popping up all the time, but you should concentrate your efforts on the two or three platforms that work best for your organization and your event.

Your Goals

Clear goals will also help focus your social media promotion efforts. For a nonprofit event, registrations or ticket sales will likely be an important measure of success. Though, it’s important to also keep the long-term value of gaining new followers and generating engagement and impressions in mind.

Your Key Announcements and Deadlines

Structure your social media promotion around a few important announcements or deadlines. You might release the date or main activities, or announce speakers, special guests, or deadlines for early-bird ticket prices. This allows you to repeatedly promote your event while relaying important information to your audience and keeping the message fresh.

It’s also a good idea to begin the use of event hashtags well before the big day. This encourages your supporters to use them and helps create interest and buzz. Reach out to a handful of dedicated supporters and ask them to post about the event. You can also call on any sponsors or partners to promote the event on social media. Send them sample text or share images that they can easily post to their social networks.

2. During the Event

Your pre-event social media work is about awareness and registrations, but during the event, your objectives shift. Day of, your efforts will seek to:

• Enhance the attendee experience
• Share the event with those who couldn’t make it
• Collect content for future engagement and event promotion

Attendee Experience

Your organization can use social media to understand what your audience loves about your event and what they don’t care for. This is where an event hashtag becomes really important as it allows you to discover posts about your event in one stream. Like, share, and respond to positive posts. This will encourage people to keep talking about your event. You might even start trending!

But don’t ignore complaints. A study found that 42 percent of people who contact a brand on social media expect a response within an hour. While you’re sure to be busy on the day of your event, reading and responding to negative posts can alert you to problems you may not know about. Even if you don’t have an immediate solution, replying or messaging the attendee shows you care and want to make things right.

Share With Your Social Audience

Social media allows people all over the world to experience events they can’t necessarily attend. Use your social posts to show others what they’re missing. This will not only nurture existing relationships, but also intrigue new potential supporters. Post high-quality pictures and videos, short testimonials from attendees, and fun updates and highlights of your event. Those who could not (or chose not to) come might be enticed by what you share and make a note not to miss your next event.

Collect Content

Events offer tons of content opportunities. From pictures to videos to quotes, a great event can help generate blog and social media content for months to come. Get your whole team on board and task them to write down any awesome quotes or favorite moments. It’s also smart to have a specific list of images you want to capture ahead of time so you can ensure they’re taken.

While it’s important to have a plan walking into your event, you also need to be flexible with your day-of social strategy to capitalize on the day in an authentic way. Some of the best social media content happens in the moment. Don’t be afraid to replace or add an extra post that really shows off what’s special about your event.

3. After the Event

Much like a fundraising campaign, the final phase of your social media event marketing is about follow-up, reengagement, and key learnings. Make sure to post some thank you or wrap-up messages on your main social media channels. Now is also the time to consolidate all of the content you collected for future marketing initiatives. Review your assets and decide how they will be used in future promotions.

In this phase, you can also use social media to collect feedback from your community. In the days after, post questions about attendees’ favorite experiences. You can also promote the link to a survey to get more detailed feedback. This information will be extremely valuable when you plan your next event. You will learn what elements resonated and what issues you can improve upon.

Finally, keep your followers and event attendees updated on your subsequent events. If this is your signature annual event you can even start selling tickets for next year immediately. Let people commit now, when they’re full of happy memories.

 

Social media is a fun and flexible way to enhance your events. But, like other forms of marketing, it still requires focus and preparation. Use these three phases to optimize the social media element of your next event marketing plan

 

Culled From Classy

Post Tags:#Digital Marketing#event marketing#Social media marketing

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Writing the First Chapter of Your Manuscript

Although we often have our story already fully crafted in our head, it is always still difficult writing the first chapter. Writers, emerging and veteran writers inclusive experience troubleshooting when it comes to creating a compelling first page capable of hooking the readers. Though hook sentences play a major role, they are however not enough to grip the reader throughout the first chapter. Readers need to be engaged with stakes that would make them commit and get equally immersed with the book. If you’re finding it difficult to write the first chapter of your manuscript, here are some tips to get you started.

Open your first chapter in media res:

Readers do not want to get bored when they pick your book for reading. You also don’t want this after all. In Media Res is loosely translated as …in the middle of events. So, rather than start your chapter with a “Once upon a time…”. Starting your book’s first chapter with an unexpected action will stimulate immediate interest in your book.

Start your first chapter with a hook sentence:

When writing the first chapter of your manuscript, you should ensure the first sentence grabs the attention of the readers. Hook sentences generally serve the purpose of arousing the interest of readers, so you should take due advantage of it. Additionally, a hook sentence works even better when you start your chapter in media res.  Doing this will spur your reader to keep on reading.

Don’t lump back story in your first chapter:

The backstory is your character’s past. They do not necessarily form part of a story. But they add to the plot and create a better understanding of certain events in a literary work. To achieve a great effect with the backstory in your manuscript, you should try not to lump them in the first chapter. Rather, spread them across several chapters of your manuscript as the story builds.

You can introduce each backstory when a character wants to take action, reflects, or wants to make a decision.

Don’t introduce many characters in your first chapter:

When writing the first chapter of your manuscript, avoid introducing too many characters. Doing this may prevent you from creating a good reading effect for your readers, who tend to struggle with remembering the characters. Limiting the number of characters you introduce in your first chapter will avail you of the opportunity to create compelling and easy-to-remember moments and actions. The trick to this is introducing the main characters of your book in the first chapter. That is, the protagonist and the antagonist will surely suffice for the effect you wanted to create.

Introduce a new challenge:

Towards the end of your first chapter, introduce a new challenge. This is to enable your readers keep turning the pages in search of answers or remedies to illusions your book already projected in their heads.

For instance, you might have a protagonist suffer from a deadly disease with an unknown cure and has been prescribed to have very few days left to live. He may then get some information about a certain herbalist in a dangerous faraway land who has the cure. The character engages in the deadly journey and spends days fighting numerous carnivores on the way. However, getting to the herbalist’s abode, he discovers the herbalist had gone on a journey that would take him many days to return.

Ending the first chapter on this note will make your readers eager to find out if the protagonist survives or not. The desire to find out how he or she sorts things out will force your readers to keep reading.

Religiously adopting the above tips on writing the first chapter of your manuscript will give you a great head start when writing.

Step by Step Guide to Write Content Better and Faster

If you are a writer, you might already have written various types of content or you might be starting now.

An expert writer will have no trouble creating blogs, guest posts, articles, eBooks, digital newsletters, brochures, flyers, promotional emails, and other types of content.

Anyone would break out in a cold sweat considering the volume of work that writers are expected to complete each day.

Additionally, even as a freelancer, it can occasionally be challenging to come up with ideas for a project and see it through to completion.

This overwhelming sensation causes writers to procrastinate because it makes them feel stressed and overwhelmed.

That situation has happened to all of us.

But do not worry; we will provide you with some advice on this blog on how to enhance and perfect your writing abilities as well as organize your work with the aid of proper tools.

Here Is a Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Better Content in a Faster Way

There are many uses for content writing, but marketing and business use is where it is most frequently employed.

Its goal is to inspire and educate readers while promoting and/or selling a range of goods, services, and knowledge.

Here’s how to write content better – and faster too:

 

1.     Identify Context and Subject

Content writers must do this before they start.

Before writing a word, every writer must comprehend the subject and its context.

First, understand the subject, then proceed carefully and follow your method.

Every writer approaches different content categories differently.

The entire process is meant to suit the demands of the users who will be reading and using the site’s content.

If the content is not created to meet those wants and the website’s needs, there’s no sense in creating it.

Content creation is not easy, and the writer must be accurate.

Ensure you have thoroughly researched your issue.

2.     Use or Update Your Content Strategy

Before beginning to generate any kind of content for any platform, it is essential to test and evaluate the reach of already existing relevant content.

The people who will make up the target audience read your content on the web, and they are the basis of why the entire method is carried out.

If the content is not generated in line with their and the internet site’s needs, there is no point in writing content for them.

It is crucial that you produce content that satisfies their needs because every website and/or system has a unique user interface and organizational structure.

3.     Take the Help of Tools

We live in a time with a lot of new technology, and we are lucky to have access to tools and resources that help us be more accurate and efficient with our content.

The online-notepad.net is the ultimate evidence of this fact.

·        Online-Notepad.net

The online notepad is an online, simple, user-friendly, free-to-use note-keeping tool that does more than just store plain notes.

Free Notepad online is a tool that lets you write basic and rich text and format it completely. It has a long list of advanced features that make it as easy as possible for the user.

Beginning with the tool’s absolute best UI (User Interface), it has a clean and vibrant layout that does not look raw and boring like its competitors.

Check out its top features below.

Following Are Some Comprehensive Features:

• Easy And Simple UI

Notepad has a simple, vibrant, and easy-to-use user interface.

• Plain Text Mode 

 Plain Text Mode simply displays plain text with no formatting options.

• Rich Text Mode

 Rich Text Mode allows for advanced text formatting. 

• Task List

The Task List gives the user a straightforward writing pad to list tasks, check them off as they are finished, and rearrange the order as needed.

• Text Sizes

 There are various text sizes to choose from. 

• Various Text Fonts

The text pad includes 9 different font styles.

• Colored Fonts

 There are 15 different font color options.

• Font Background Colors

 There are 15 available font background colors.

• Text Alignment

 Text alignment helps align text.

• Link Insertion

Any link can be easily added by the user to the notes.

• Different Heading Sizes

 The user has a choice between three heading options.

• Insertable Images And Tables

Advanced options for inserting tables and images of various sizes.

• Number/Bullet List 

Text can be organized using bullet points.

• Lock Notes

To prevent any unauthorized access, notes can easily be locked.  

• Pdf, Word, Docx, and Txt Format Support.

Importing and downloading standard note formats is easy.

4. Break Content Down, Make It Readable.

Sort your section headings.

Headings “split” a lengthy article and help readers navigate.

Ensure large text’s readability.

Create easy-to-read, scannable content.

People today are much less likely to read long sections and more likely to skip sections or exit a website.

So if you want to write content better, make sure you organize it very well. Doing so helps readers to avoid navigation issues, making it easier for them to grasp your message.

Use content headings and highlights to help readers find information.

This saves consumers time and makes the content easier to read.

5. Don’t Ramble; Be Brief and Direct.

As a skilled writer, I know how easy it can be to produce long, twisting streams of text.

If necessary, add more until it satisfies your needs.

Your content should not be too long or too short; find the perfect spot.

Most internet users scroll over text to get the info they want, so be concise.

A writer can overcome difficulties, minimize interruptions, and write more effectively and quickly with tools.

Throughout this procedure, make sure your content benefits the reader.

6. Be Original And Versatile

Nobody likes reading or writing boring text.

Essay writing requires creativity.

It sets you apart from other genre authors.

This does not mean you must compose a story with exotic animals.

Use hook lines, alliteration, metaphors, and different phrase structures to make your writing stand out.

Create an identity for yourself as a writer who can create interesting content.

7. Display and Explain

 I’ve seen numerous websites that are all plain text.

These sites are uninteresting since they only have text.

Add graphics and illustrations to your content to express its theme and context.

Start with the intro graphic that describes the topic.

Conclusion

We covered subject and context, as well as show and tell, to help you write content better.

As a writer, knowing how to write well and structure well is crucial.

We’ve included a few tips for making the content writing process easier and helping you write high-quality content.

• CONTENT
• WRITING

7 Steps For An Effective Social Media Marketing Plan

Social media is a vital marketing channel for businesses of all sizes. The common question a few years ago, “why should our business use social media?”, is now being replaced with, “how can our business grow with social media marketing?”.

As a social media marketer, this makes me very excited. What doesn’t make me excited is how many businesses are still trying to market on social media without a documented strategy. In this post, you will learn the seven steps your business must take to create an effective social media marketing strategy.

Step 1: Audit Your Current Social Presence

“Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.” – Beth Comstock

Before you strategize about where you are headed, take a quick look at where you are. A few areas to consider when auditing your business’s social media presence are:

• Which networks are you currently active on
• Are your networks optimized (photo and cover images, bio, URL, etc.)
• Which networks are currently bringing you the most value
• How do your profiles compare to your competitors’ profiles

We offer a total online presence audit that includes a deep analysis of your social media, content, SEO, and web structure with a presentation of key priorities and recommended plan – Check out our Total Online Presence Audit.

Step 2: Document Who Your Ideal Customer Is

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker

You will want to get as specific as possible with this part. For example, if you identified your target market as parents it would be ok. However, if you identify your ideal customer as a parent that lives in the United States, is between 30 and 50 years of age, earns over $70,000, primarily uses Facebook and has an interest in outdoor activities you will have much more success.

Even the best marketers will fail if they are marketing to the wrong audience. Answer the following questions to help you come up with a highly focused buyer persona:

• Age
• Location
• Job Title
• Income
• Pain Points (that your business can solve)
• Most Used Social Network

Step 3: Create A Social Media Mission Statement

“What makes you weird, makes you unique and therefore makes you stand out.” – Dan Schawbel

Your social media mission statement will drive your future actions, so make sure you put some thought into it. This statement will make it clear exactly what you plan to use your social media presence for and should reflect your brand identity. Keep in mind your ideal customer when trying to create this statement.

An example mission statement might be “to use social media to educate current and potential customers about digital marketing, with a focus on social media marketing.” Once you have this statement documented, it will make it simple for you to decide what to share and create.

If it doesn’t align with your mission statement, forget about it. Businesses that post randomly without a guiding mission will fail. People follow experts, not generalists.

Step 4: Identify Key Success Metrics

“If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin

How will you determine if your social media marketing efforts are successful? I am not just talking about gaining more followers, I am talking about making money. Afterall, it is hard to rationalize spending time and money on something that isn’t improving the bottom line.

A few metrics to consider measuring are:

• Conversion Rate
• Time Spent on Website
• Reach
• Brand Mentions
• Sentiment
• Total Shares

Step 5: Create and Curate Engaging Content

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet.” – Bill Gates

Sadly, many businesses jump straight to this step. Hopefully, this post has made it clear that there are several vital steps that you must take before you start creating and curating engaging content to share on your social media channels.

Let’s now discuss the fun part, posting to social media. You know who your ideal customer is and you used that information to create your social media mission statement. Armed with this information it should be easy for you to begin creating and curating content. So, what exactly is considered content? Here are a few examples of content you could create:

• Images
• Videos
• Blog Posts
• Company News
• Infographics
• eBooks
• Interviews

The list of content ideas goes on and on, but make sure you focus only on forms of content that align with your mission statement, as well as your skill set. Content is what fuels social media, so it is crucial that you consider creating high quality, engaging content as a top priority.

I strongly recommend that you create a content calendar that outlines how often you will post to each network, which topics you will share and when you will share them.

Step 6: Invest In a Social Media Management Tool

“We live in times in which ordinary people can do amazing things using the right tools”

Most marketers have a secret, they leverage tools to boost their productivity. Ok, maybe it isn’t a secret, but without tools, marketers would face constant burnout (many do even with tools). When it comes to social media, having a social media management tool allows you to scale your efforts with ease.

One of the main benefits of a social media management tool is the ability to schedule posts ahead of time. Remember that content calendar you created? Make sure your scheduled posts in your social media management tool align with your content calendar.

Step 7: Track, Analyze, Optimize

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.” – Ronald Coase

This may be the most important step when it comes to succeeding on social media. Even the best social media marketers rely on trial and error. It might seem basic, but tracking your results, analyzing the data and then making tweaks to optimize them is crucial.

Each previous step should be re-evaluated after you have had time to analyze the results of your marketing efforts. Let the data drive you. If it is telling you Facebook or Twitter is your most effective channel, consider doubling down.

A great social media strategy is never set in stone. It is a constant work in progress that changes when necessary. So get out there, create a strategy and start optimizing it as you continue to grow and learn more about your business and your audience.

Culled from Duct Tape Marketing

Post Tags:#content#Marketing#Social media#social media management#social media plan

How to Stem Book Piracy Using the Lean Principle

Book piracy is the biggest obstacle for publishing firms across the globe. Book piracy is described as an illegal and illegitimate reproduction of other people’s intellectual property for economic reasons, without prior consent or authorization. Forms of book piracy include local reproduction of fast-moving titles using newsprints or textured paper, abuse of publication rights, hi-tech reproduction overseas, circumventing the e-book version, illegal reprography, unauthorized or excessive production by printers, and translation without permission.

The effect of this illegal act is not limited only to the destruction it brings to the image and profits of the publishers, but also the immensity of economic, educational and intellectual losses it brings upon any country. Thus, book piracy is a crime that must be fought from multilateral fronts: from government, publishers, authors, marketers and other stakeholders. Since authors and publishers work more closely in the publication process, this article shares tips about the lean principle in fighting book piracy and bringing it to the barest minimum.

Go Lean

One of the major causes of book piracy identified by researchers is poverty. This is on the part of both the pirates and the buyers. Naturally, anyone will prefer to go for a product that is cheap, yet has the same content as the costly one. Talking about books, pirates don’t change the content; they simply adjust the packaging to make it affordable for buyers and profitable for the printers. There is a secret here. Most buyers are more concerned about the content of the book, not the package. Hence, it is important to go lean.

The Lean Principle is a process strategy that is adopted by industries and entrepreneurs to create value with less resources. This can equally be applied to writing and book publishing. It is simply about maximizing customer value while minimizing waste. In achieving this, lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimizing the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers.

Pirates capitalise on the waste created by publishers to build a flow and establish pull. Ending book piracy will then require the need to maximize readers’ perceived values and reduce waste. There are five steps in the lean process:

Identify Value (Who are your readers? What do they want?)

This step involves the specification of value from the standpoint of the end customer. A secret to the success of many businesses is the devotion to identifying and specifying the needs of the market and creating values that customers crave. Customers don’t buy what you sell; they buy what they want. So, the key to selling and winning competitors is to produce what the buyers want. It is also important to designate customers into families by what is valuable to them.

Depending on the economic situation of the country, most readers are more interested in the content of the book, while some are interested in both content and how it is packaged: the paper texture and book cover. The error most publishers and authors make is spending so much on the package, assuming it will make it more attractive to buyers. But the irony is that the more fashionable the book is, the higher the price of the book. Hence, the purchasing power of the customers is exceeded. This does not mean descending to the production of potboilers, or paperbacks with low quality. It is simply finding a way to cure the waste.

2. Map the Value Stream (You may need to publish editions of the book)

Having grouped your markets into families based on their perceived value, identify all the steps in the value stream for each product family. Eliminate, whenever possible, those steps that do not create value.

What is the secret of top brands in the business world? Defensive Branding. One of the strategies is to create products uniquely for each market group without reducing the content of the product. So, whether the buyers are boxed up or not, they could still afford the product. The essence of this strategy is to defend their share of the market.

As publishers, it is not advisable to produce only one edition of a book. Some publishers produce both paperback and hardback editions. The goal is to map the value stream for the book. Why will a reader buy pirated copies of books if there are original editions that go for the same price? This is a unique way of blocking out pirates’ share of the market.

3. Create a flow (Avoid Scarcity)

After mapping the value stream and eliminating steps that do not create value, let the value flow smoothly. It is a waste if you have a quality and affordable product, but it is scarce in some places. You’ve just opened your door to pirates.  Book pirates take advantage of the scarcity of a book to launch their product.

Publishers must be effective in production, marketing, distribution processes and any other thing required to make the book flow to the readers in good quantity and at the right time. Appropriate editions should be distributed to the appropriate customers.

4. Establish pull (Be Impressive)

When products flow accurately, customers pull value from the flow. Establishing the pull is keeping the integrity, professionalism and service delivery of your publishing house which help to retain your paying customers, and perhaps increase them.

You should make your customers want more. Readers should be eager to buy books from your list because of the experience they get at the first time.

5. Seek Perfection (Win the market)

As value is specified, and value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and pull are introduced, begin the process again and continue it until a state of perfection is reached in which perfect value is created with no waste.

Waiting on the government to make laws in stemming book piracy may take forever. That’s the truth, especially in countries with slow legislative and executive systems. Nevertheless, you can wipe out pirates from the market by taking advantage of the Lean Principles. Rise up to the challenge and review your processes and strategies.