the beginner's guide to content marketing for events

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About the AuthorJazeel Badur Ferry is the Co-Founder of Eventifier and

serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Jazeel and his two bud-

dies, Nazim Zeeshan and Mohammed Saud, founded Eventi-

fier as a smarter way for event planners and event marketing

managers to archive all event photos, videos, slides, tweets,

and conversations in one place.

@acemi10

Showcase Your EventsUse Eventifier to Simplify Your Events.

Eventifier is a smarter way to archive event photos, videos, slides,

tweets, and conversations in one convenient place. We believe

that simplicity and utility are the keys to an effective event social

media campaign and have created Eventifier with the desire to

help all event managers achieve event social media success.

How it worksAll your social media buzz is now on Eventifier

Capture your eventAutomatically track all your

event conversations, pictures,

videos, and blogs. Integrate

over 16 social media platforms

at one place. Engage with

people all across the globe.

Showcase your eventAutomatically embed popular

event photos and tweets on your

official website. Display a Live

Wall of recent activity on a large

screen and create real-time en-

gagement during the event.

Analyze and leverage your event

Analyze patterns, measure the

reach and impact, and evaluate

user engagement. Generate re-

ports for sponsors. Get to know

your event up close and personally.

Don’t lose your social media buzz in the vastness of the web.Start capturing your events now!

Sign up for Free

Table of ContentsA Basic Plan for Content Marketing at Your Events

Before the Event

During the Event

After the Event

15 Content Creation Tools

Conclusion

An effective content marketing strategy involves publishing quality content on a consistent basis.

Easy to define, considerably harder to do. A persistent commitment to content creation is required

from companies aiming to regularly churn out assets like blog posts, infographics, and videos.

A recent study by Content Marketing Institute revealed that 69% of marketers state “lack of time” as

their top content marketing challenge, followed by “producing enough content” at 55%.

Don’t fret, because we’ve given you the lowdown on what to do through each stage of your event

plan as well as a list of today’s best tools for creating content.

Now what should you create and when?! Let’s get started with a list of content ideas for every phase

of your event’s progress. These ideas will help you increase signups before your event, amplify the

excitement during your event, and repurpose event content after it’s over.

A Basic Plan for Content Marketing at Your Events

1. Come Up With an Event Hashtag:

Your event hashtag should be unique, memorable, and short enough that it doesn’t take up too many

characters on Twitter. A unique hashtag will allow you to search for social media posts related to

your event. Help people remember it by including it in all your event-related social media posts and

graphics.

2. Plan Cross-Promotion Initiatives:

Share your content plans and assets with speakers and sponsors and ask how you can promote their

content back to your audiences. They will probably be open to cross-promotional initiatives, as this

will help them get the most value out of participating in your event.

3. Make Use of Twitter Lists:

Compile your event speakers, sponsors, and attendees into separate Twitter lists. Make a point to

check the activity feed for each and engage with users on a regular basis.

Before Your Event Starts:

4. Film Videos Showcasing Speakers and Sponsors:

Develop short videos showcasing your event speakers or sponsors. Speakers can give a sneak peek

into their presentation topic, while sponsors can provide education surrounding the value proposi-

tion of their product. By putting key event stakeholders in the spotlight, you’ll increase the odds that

they’ll share your content with their audiences!

5. Interview Speakers and Sponsors:

In the same vein, you can come up with interview questions to ask speakers and sponsors. Email

them the list of questions and give them the option to answer via email or via video-chat, using a

service like Google Hangouts to conduct and record the interview. Make sure to request a company

logo and headshot so you can turn the interview into a blog post or edited video!

Before Your Event Starts:

6. Share Behind-the-Scenes Photos

Take photos of the venue where the event will take place or of your team preparing for the event.

This type of human touch tends to do well on social media - share these photos on more personal,

image-driven platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!

7. Make a Highlights Reel:

Edit a short video that showcases the best moments from your previous events. Include a mix of

footage that conveys the professional and personal value of attending, blending moments of people

presenting and socializing.

8. Collect and Share Testimonials:

Ask speakers and attendees from previous events to provide 1-3 sentences about their experience at

your event. Compile these into a blog post and/or share each quote as a layered image on social me-

dia. Use a tool like Canva to batch create multiple quote images using a pre-designed template.

Before Your Event Starts:

9. Tag Photos of Attendees:

Take photos of attendees and speakers, making sure to @mention their Twitter and Instagram pro-

files on each social network. Don’t forget to include your event hashtag in all of these posts!

10. Share Presentation Quotes:

These are the snippets that people following your event from home are waiting for! Give them more

than just tweets by creating quote images in the moment using a tool like Wordswag. Images have

been proven to receive a lot more engagement on social media than plain text, and it may even take

less time to create one of these quote graphics than it does to cull your tweet to 140 characters!

During Your Event:

11. Edit Videos in the Moment:

Share video snippets of your event as it unfolds - use a tool like Magisto to upload raw footage via

mobile and create an engaging edited video in minutes.

12. Have an Event Hub On Your Website:

Compile and present all social media content shared at your event in a single interface. A tool like

Eventifier allows you to curate posts from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more - giving those that

couldn’t be there in person a way to follow your event from home. Eventifier also includes an analyt-

ics platform that gives you a breakdown of your social media performance, as well as an easy way to

contact and reward your most socially active attendees!

13. Provide Handout Materials:

Give your attendees tangible materials to take home. These should have some sort of educational

value pertaining to your event topic and include your event hashtag and social media profile links.

During Your Event:

14. Offer Incentives for Social Media Interactions:

Now that people have your social media information, provide a reason for them to follow and engage

with you! Make this incentive clear in your handout materials, event signage, and opening statements.

This incentive could be something that you could profitably offer to everyone who takes the desired

social media action, like a percent or dollar amount off the admission price to your next event.

15. Run a Sweepstakes:

You can also offer a chance for one or a few people to win a higher-value prize. Have attendees fol-

low your social networks or share a post about your event in order to be entered to win. Make it clear

that they must include the event hashtag and @mention your company to be eligible.

16. Hold a Contest:

While sweepstakes involve choosing a winner at random, a contest winner is awarded by merit. Ask

attendees to share a funny photo or creative tweet, then decide on the winner via an internal panel

or by the number of social media responses each post receives.

During Your Event:

17. Compile Everybody’s Information:

Collect attendee information from social media posts and match these to contact information you

collected when people registered for your event. This may sound cumbersome, but is greatly facili-

tated if you aggregated your event content using a tool like Eventifier! Taking this step will give you

a more robust record of your marketable audience and prospective attendees for your next event, as

well as facilitating your social media outreach efforts.

18. Ask For Feedback:

In a separate email, ask attendees to tell you what they thought about your event. Use a tool like

Polldaddy or Surveymonkey to easily create a questionnaire, making sure to include both quantita-

tive and qualitative form elements. This allows you to quantify a big picture sentiment on the quality

of your event, while collecting more nuanced insights that can be used to create testimonial quotes

to promote your next event.

After Your Event

19. Share Event Recaps:

Create an album of event photos on Facebook and ask people to tag themselves and the people

they know. Compile all event presentations on Slideshare and share the link via email and social me-

dia. If you’re using a tool like Eventifier, you can present all these different types of posts from a sin-

gle event dashboard!

20. Build a Content Repository:

In addition to sharing this content, save it so you can reuse it later. Your next event will be around the

corner before you know it, and you’re going to want to repurpose all the great content you collected

and turn it into new great content!

After Your Event

This list should provide a good starting point for coming up with creative and strategic ways to

leverage content to promote your next event. When done right, content marketing is an ideal way

to drum up excitement before your event and carry that momentum beyond the walls of your venue

and after your last attendee has gone home.

Now that we’ve covered an event plan for your content, we’ve crafted this master list of content mar-

keting tools to help you produce a healthy amount of awesome content on a regular basis.

With a little help from these productivity-enhancing tools you’ll be crafting great content in record

time.

Content Ideation Tools

1. Feedly

After Google Reader was shut down, Feedly emerged as the best solution for following blogs. Set up

folders by area of interest and get the latest blog posts in your industry on desktop or mobile. Feedly

also integrates with several apps for saving and publishing articles, allowing you to seamlessly orga-

nize and share content on social media.

Assuming your job involves social media marketing and event marketing, you can create folders for

each of these two industries and follow the latest stories that will help you be great at your job. Say

you work for an eco-friendly architecture firm, you can create folders for following architecture blogs

and eco-friendly blogs that will allow you to find industry-related and on-brand stories for your busi-

ness to share.

Favorite Tool For Following Blogs:

2. Twitter

Twitter’s Lists tool is the best way to organize and keep track of updates from key contacts, pros-

pects, and top influencers in your industry. Create multiple lists pertaining to different types of peo-

ple you want to follow and engage with. For example, you could create a list of influencers who post

interesting content about the event marketing industry, a list of your event speakers and sponsors,

and a list of people who have confirmed attendance at your next event. Regularly check the Twitter

streams for these lists, making a point to retweet, favorite, and @reply content regularly to maintain

your relationships with these key people.

For Following People

3. Evernote

Evernote is instrumental in managing your creative process. The tool allows you to clip content from

the web and sync notes across a variety of devices, so you’re never caught with a good idea and no-

where to record it!

For Organizing Your Thoughts:

4. BuzzSumo

Buzzsumo is a search engine that ranks results for your keywords according to how many times they

were shared on top social networks. You can filter content by date or type (articles, infographics,

etc.) More than just a great way to find the most shareable content in your industry, Buzzsumo also

has a tool for finding top influencers to promote your content.

For Finding Content Ideas:

5. Pocket

Stop emailing yourself articles to read later! This is what Pocket was made for. It’s a free, cloud-based

app for saving content you find online and allowing you to access it from any device, online or offline.

For Saving Content to Read Later:

6. Eventifier

Videos, images, and text posts around digital or real-life events are scattered across multiple plat-

forms by nature - wouldn’t it be neat if these could be compiled to tell a single story? This is where

Eventifier comes in, allowing marketers to pull in content from various social networks and aggregate

it into an elegant archive page.

For Aggregating Social Media Content:

Content Creation Tools:

7. 123RF

Finding quality graphics is a challenge for many marketers as there seems to be an inescapable

trade-off: cheap graphics aren’t good and good graphics aren’t cheap. The only exception I’ve seen

to this rule is 123RF.com. The website has a robust gallery of images to choose from and prices start

at $1 per image for the smallest size (which is usually large enough for a blog or social media image).

You will likely have to wade through several cheesy images before finding good ones, but there are

plenty of gems to be found on this website.

For Finding Graphics:

8. Canva

Canva is a great tool for creating stunning images that marry graphics and text, all within a us-

er-friendly drag-and-drop interface. The website comes with a wide variety of pre-designed tem-

plates that are optimized for different social networks and content types. You can upload your own

images to work with the pre-loaded templates, and save your templates for easy updating.

For Creating Layered Graphics:

9. Wordswag

Say you’re at an event and want to take an

awesome tip someone gave during a pre-

sentation and turn it into a quote graphic

to post on social media. Without a laptop

on hand, Wordswag is your best bet for

making a beautifully-designed social me-

dia image that’s ready to share before the

speaker even finishes their presentation!

Choose from a gallery of background im-

ages or upload your own, add text, choose

font stylings and you’re ready to go! Here’s

an image I created in minutes, highlighting

a quote from event marketing influencer

Pam Moore.

For Creating Graphics On the Go:

10. Powtoon

You know those minimalist, cartoonish explainer videos that you come across - particularly on start-

up websites? You don’t need to hire an animation expert to make one of these! Enter Powtoon - their

mission is to enable the everyman (and woman) to create engaging and professional animated pre-

sentations. Watch their demo, it’s a seriously impressive and easy-to-use platform.

For Creating Animated Videos:

11. Magisto

Magisto describes itself as a “magical video editor” and is our favorite pick for creating gorgeous

videos on the go. The “magical” part comes in with the app’s editing algorithms, which claim to be

able to analyze raw video footage to pick out and optimally sequence the most engaging segments.

Users can select moods and styles for their videos, which go into the algorithm’s selection of aspects

like music, transitions and editing speed. This app is perfect for use during an event - allowing you to

share videos that capture the essence of attending in person for the people watching from home!

For Creating Videos on the Go:

12. Piktochart

Infographics just might be the most shareable content format out there, and there is no shortage of

tools to help you create them. Among these, Piktochart stands out as the most robust and flexible

option. Choose from a variety of pre-designed templates, then customize the data and design of

your infographic using their sleek drag-and-drop interface.

For Creating Infographics:

13. Polldaddy

Online quizzes seem to have grown in popularity over the past year, and where the clicks go - mar-

keters will follow. Enter Polldaddy - a tool that allows you to create customized quizzes, polls, and

surveys. The platform allows you to write your own questions and results, customize the look and

feel of your questionnaire, and embed the quiz on your website. Polldaddy’s iPad app is ideal for sur-

veying attendees at your event and gathering responses in the moment.

For Creating Quizzes:

14. Google Docs

Tried-and-true Google Docs still stands as the best way to write and collaborate on writing blog

posts. The auto-save feature means you never have to worry about the platform crashing and delet-

ing the work you’ve done, mitigating every writer’s worst fear. Sharing Google Docs is a breeze, al-

lowing anyone with a working Internet connection to view, comment and edit your writing - depend-

ing on the permissions you’ve granted them.

For Writing Blogs:

15. Scrivener

If you’re writing a long-form ebook,

you will probably get frustrated using a

simple word processing platform. Herein

lies the beauty of Scrivener - our favor-

ite tool for structuring, writing, and for-

matting long-form written pieces. Scriv-

ener allows you to easily organize your

writing into sections, customize your

design and layout, then export your

book into any format you need it in.

For Writing Ebooks:

There you have it! A full list of our favorite tools for creating the Internet’s most clickable and share-

able content types. From snackable social media images to long-form ebooks, these are the tools we

consider best in their class. Did we miss any of your favorite content creation tools? Let us know in

the comments!

Keep being creative with how you repurpose your event content. Have a plan to create blog posts,

infographics, and SlideShare presentations before, during, and after your event .

If executed correctly, you will have collected enough awesome video footage during the short time

frame of your event to give you an entire years-worth of digital content. At this rate, your next event

will be an even bigger success!

Conclusion

About EventifierEventifier helps you make sense of your event social media marketing

by enabling you to easily see and show social activity and analytics for

your event. We create a seamless and smart way for you to automati-

cally capture what people are saying and sharing about your event all

around the social media world.

Don’t lose your social media buzz in the vastness of the web.Start capturing your events now!

Sign up for Free