Marketing budgets have fallen again and, according to Gartner’s ‘State of Marketing Budget and Strategy in 2023’ report, 75% of CMOs are being asked to do more with less in 2023. With a hyper-focus on making marketing budgets work harder, we are turning our eye to one of the most cost-effective channels for B2B events - social media. As a mostly free channel, with some spend required on tools to create efficiencies (more on that later), social media is a key driver for growing brand awareness, driving organic lead generation and conversions for attendees and spex, and keeping your community engaged year-round. Successful use of social media can lead to exponential audience growth through earned media - i.e. people choosing to share your content with their own networks because they believe it to be of significant interest and value. It’s an opportunity to build a community of engaged followers that are more likely to convert and can be targeted with paid advertising, creating further opportunities to drive valuable actions like completing a form or registering. Social media isn’t just a tactic to use in the lead-up to your event and then dial down once your event has happened. Your social media strategy should focus on all 3 stages of your event marketing cycle:

• Pre-event is where the bulk of your social activity will be and the aim is to generate direct and influenced leads and registrations and build excitement ahead of the event. Event-specific posts typically focus on the upcoming event, but can also contain post-event content from previous years to provide a sample of what to expect.

• During event activity that takes place while your event is live. It focuses on generating live discussion, providing real-time updates on sessions taking place and generating as much buzz and ‘FOMO’ as possible.

• Post-event activity takes place immediately after your event, until pre-event activity begins for the next event. Focus this activity on wrapping up and sharing the content and discussion generated from the event. Encourage non-attendees to register their interest for the next event while the sense of ‘missing out’ is still present.

Team MPG has helped many clients efficiently and effectively accelerate the growth of their events by creating and executing multi-channel event marketing strategies, including social media. Here are the 10 steps MPG recommends you take to elevate your social media marketing:

#1 Know your target audience to create content that resonates

To effectively connect with your audience, it's crucial to understand who they are and what they want. For every event, you should have a documented messaging strategy that outlines who your audience is, what their challenges/opportunities and jobs to be done are, and defines your event's USPs and benefits. Your social posts should either be so interesting that:

• people want to click to find out more

• they start a conversation i.e. get people talking/commenting/sharing

A robust messaging strategy helps you engage with your audience in a way that feels authentic.

#2 Listen to your audience and meet them where they are

Monitor and analyse the conversations your audience is having on different social media platforms to gather valuable insights, identify trends, understand preferences, and recognise pain points. This is called ‘social listening’. Use this information to identify the right social platforms to use, improve your content, and better address their needs. You might already have this functionality in your tech stack - some CRMs e.g. HubSpot have social listening as part of their native social media management functionality. If you don’t already have this built-in, there are many tools that can be used as standalone products or can also integrate with your CRM e.g. Oktopost.

#3 Keep an eye on your competitors

Study what your competitors are doing on social media. If they are already implementing successful strategies, learn from them. See how they are positioning themselves in the market and how shared or overlapping audiences are engaging with their content. If your competitors don’t have a successful social media presence, take the opportunity to differentiate yourself and reach a user base they have yet to tap into.

#4 Harness the powers of influencers

Look for influencers, both individuals and brands, who have a large following and align with your brand values. Collaborating with influencers can greatly amplify your reach and credibility. This could be as simple as aligning your brand with well-known media outlets or associations via partnerships that include them posting your content, or by actively sharing third-party content from these key industry players.

#5 Leverage your brand advocates

Brand trust is more important now than ever, and the viewpoints and actions of trusted colleagues, peers and community thought leaders have a huge influence on purchasing decisions. Leveraging your brand loyalists (advisory boards, speakers, sponsors/exhibitors and attendees) is an important part of the puzzle when it comes to creating and executing your amplification strategy. This should be automated wherever possible e.g. with tools such as InGo, Gleanin or Snöball, allowing your marketing team to focus on other revenue-generating activities.

Don’t forget to include employee advocacy as part of your social strategy. All event stakeholders, e.g. salespeople and producers, will have strong networks of highly relevant contacts that can be leveraged. Linking personal accounts in social media management tools (e.g. adding personal accounts to HubSpot or using tools like Oktopost) helps you amplify your messages across social.

#6 Develop a comprehensive content strategy

A successful social media strategy requires a good mix of product promotion (e.g. speaker highlights and agenda session focus), informative content (e.g. industry reports, articles or white papers), and offer-led content (e.g. early-bird promotions). This content should be repackaged into multiple formats e.g. image + copy posts, PDFs or short and long-form videos to provide a variety so that your target audience can engage with a format that resonates well for them. Don't be afraid to experiment and try new formats - e.g. polls, questions, posts with images, posts without images etc.

Plan your content calendar in advance, ensuring you are posting regularly i.e. at least 1 post per week, per channel, increased to 2 per week from 12 weeks out and to 3-4 times per week in the final 3 weeks before the event.

#7 Create high-quality, on-brand creative assets

Consistency is key, not only in your posting schedule but also in your overall brand identity. It is important to maintain a consistent brand image across all marketing channels. If your brand's messaging and identity keep changing, it can confuse consumers and make it difficult for them to connect with your brand.

Further enhance your social media presence by investing in creating visually appealing and engaging content using high-quality photos, videos, and graphics to capture your audience’s attention and increase engagement.

#8 Optimise your posts for discovery

Make it easy for new people to find your brand by using relevant event and industry keyword hashtags and tagging relevant accounts, e.g. speakers and their companies and sponsors and exhibitors. Use the event hashtag consistently - ‘owning’ a unique hashtag makes your social account more discoverable, and creates a library of relevant 1st and 3rd party content. Users who aren’t following you can click on the event hashtag and discover an active community, sharing content that they are interested in. Be sure not to include the event year in your hashtag so that users can see your full catalogue of content and you don’t need to ‘start from scratch’ each year.

#9 Track and measure your social media efforts

Regularly track and measure the performance of your social media posts and campaigns. Use analytics tools to gather data on engagement, reach, conversions, and other relevant metrics. This will help you understand what's working and what needs improvement.

#10 Utilise social media management tools

Social media management tools like Oktopost can help you streamline your posting, monitoring, and tracking processes. When selecting a social media management tool, consider:

• Content creation - does the tool have AI content-creating capabilities that will enable you to effectively create social media content at scale?

• Integrations - does it integrate with your CRM and other marketing automation platforms to optimise workflow and data management?

• Reporting - does it provide you with data on your social engagement and analytics dashboards that will enable you to extract actionable insights and make data-led decisions?

By following these 10 steps, you can elevate your social media presence and take your online engagement to the next level. Remember to continuously adapt and optimise your strategies based on audience feedback and industry trends.

---

Team MPG can help you accelerate the growth of your B2B events

We can help you attract and convert more of the right customers with a robust marketing strategy, practical operational roadmaps and rigorous execution. Get in touch with Team MPG today to see how we can help you unlock revenue growth in your business.

---

What our clients have said about working with Team MPG:

Julian Rose, Director & Co-Founder Environment Analyst