How to attract more event attendees with social media advertising

What is the first thing you think of when you think of advertising?

TV commercials?

Billboards on the freeway?

Radio ads?

Infomercials?

Magazine spreads?

Bus stop ads?

While these are the more traditional forms of advertising, a lot has changed in the past ten years when it comes to effectively reaching your audience, and if you are not thinking about social media advertising first, you may be behind in your approach.

Social media has proven itself to be one of the most powerful tools when it comes to boosting your event audience.

There are many pros to using social media advertising over more traditional methods; it is generally less expensive, and is more adept in helping you reach your target audience. However, it can be difficult to figure out where to start.

This short guide will introduce you to the different platforms, help you choose which to advertise on, and recommend resources that will help you level-up your social media advertising.

A. Choosing the right social media platforms

Just as there are no two fingerprints the same, each social network is unique.

Each is one of a kind, serving a specific purpose for its target audience, so ensure you use them appropriately.

Whether you are giving a motivational speech, interviewing Ed Sheeran, or launching a product, it is essential to identify your target audience upfront.

The three major players: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Depending on your industry and target audience, it is important to understand that some social media platforms will be more effective than others.

1. Facebook

Facebook is, hands down, the biggest and most popular social networking site in the world.

Users: 2.37 billion active users monthly

Quick facts:

• Most common age demographic: 29.7% of users are aged 25 to 34.
• Highest traffic occurs mid-week between 1 and 3 pm.
• 42% of marketers report that Facebook is either critical or very important to their business.

Who is the audience?

Think of Facebook as everyone and anyone.

While Twitter’s user base is young and higher-educated, and LinkedIn’s is more professionally-oriented, Facebook consists of a variety of users across all demographics.

It is a great place to engage with your audience. Each Facebook user is connected to an average of 80 pages, groups, or events. This means that while many are primarily using Facebook to connect with friends and family, it is also a goldmine for business networking and finding the right audience for your next event.

2. Twitter

Twitter is a very active and fast-moving place.

While the average Twitter user has 208 followers and has made around 300 Tweets, they spend a whopping 170 minutes on Twitter each day. At least 29% of Twitter users are active several times a day. This means they are mostly reading and scrolling through other people’s tweets.

Users: 321 million monthly active users

Quick facts:

• Most common age demographic: 37% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18 and 29.
• 54% of Twitter users earn more than $50,000 a year.
• 65.8% of American companies and brands are on Twitter.

Who is the audience?

Twitter has a smart audience. Celebrities, politicians, writers, industry specialists, and speakers alike are on Twitter. 83% of UN member countries have a Twitter presence.

You can connect with strangers and friends with equal ease. Having an event hashtag is essential for helping you communicate with your audience, and encourages online networking before, during, and after your event.

You can connect with your speakers, other industry events, advertisers, sponsors, contributors, and most importantly, your audience in one fell swoop on this platform.

3. LinkedIn

With more than 270 million users, and almost half of those visiting at least once a month, LinkedIn has the numbers to compete with Twitter and Facebook. But numbers aside, LinkedIn is simply the place to be when it comes to business to business (B2B) sales: meaning if you want to target an audience from within an industry, this is where you need to be.

Users: 260 million monthly active users

Quick facts:

• Most common age demographic: 61% of LinkedIn users are 30 to 64 years old
• 44% of LinkedIn users earn more than $75,000 a year.
• 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content, and 57% of companies have a LinkedIn company page.

Who is the audience?

LinkedIn is a business-focused pool of professionals. Whereas anyone can connect on Twitter, LinkedIn is for the people you know and trust. Your credibility is not increased solely by numbers but by the quality of your connections.

The LinkedIn audience is more focused on B2B marketing than on business to customer (B2C) marketing. The idea here is to focus more on credibility and connections over building a large audience of followers.

B. Overview of paid advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

How do you get started with paid advertising on your favorite social network?

All three platforms provide a wealth of advertising options that can increase awareness, clicks, app installs, followers, etc.

Every social media platform has a different demographic profile, so there is no cookie-cutter solution here.

Let’s take a look at how things work:

1. Facebook

When it’s about reaching your target audiences or end customers, Facebook provides a lot of options.

Facebook updates its ad platform regularly with new features and targeting options, and whether you are focusing on core, custom, or lookalike, you will certainly find relevant options for each of your requirements.

For a successful Facebook ad campaign, I would recommend using Facebook’s audience network. It means the social media platform will show your ad to the most relevant, lowest cost audiences.

Want to find out more about Facebook ads? Here are 3 resources:

• Facebook Advertising Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide
• How to Advertise on Facebook in 2020: The Definitive Facebook Ads Guide
• 4 Big Reasons Why You Should Be Using Facebook Ads As A Solopreneur

2. Twitter

Twitter has robust advertising offerings.

Here you can create objective-based campaigns tailored for a variety of business goals, such as app installations, engaging followers, increasing tweet engagements, increasing website clicks and conversions, etc.

There is no minimum spend when it comes to getting started with Twitter advertising.

The first thing you need to do is decide how much you will pay for each interaction, such as a new follower, or someone who visits your website, or automatic bidding. Then you take it from there.

Want to find out more about Twitter ads? Here are 3 resources:

• Twitter Marketing in 2020: The Ultimate Guide
• How To Advertise on Twitter: Simple Steps to Get The Voice Out There
• How to Use Twitter Ads Like a Pro and Get the Most Out of Your Budget

3. LinkedIn Ads

Unlike Facebook and Twitter ads, the budget and targeting options available on LinkedIn are way simpler.

People use LinkedIn to manage their professional profiles and interact with other professionals. When you choose LinkedIn as your paid advertising campaign platform, it is a clear-cut solution that offers budgets and bids on a day to day basis.

You can try using LinkedIn sponsored emails where you can drive prospective customers for webinar sign-ups, conference registrations, white paper downloads, and more. These Inmails also offer a variety of targeting options ranging from company attributes to job attributes, education, gender, skills and years of experience.

Want to find out more about LinkedIn ads? Here are 3 resources:

• How to Use LinkedIn Ads to Grow Your Business
• Keep your LinkedIn advertising strategy focused in 2020
• 5 Less-Than-Obvious LinkedIn Targeting Tactics to Start Using Today

Wrapping it up

There are many good reasons to use social media advertising, the most important being that it helps you reach your target audience more effectively than more traditional methods. Finding out which networks your audience is on and creating targeted ads to attract them will help you fill seats.

What to read next

• 40 ways to use social media before, during and after the event to engage your audience
• Social networking: what to talk about on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• YouTube, Canva and SlideShare: How to repurpose your presentation as marketing material

Listen to experts share insights on our podcast:

• World of Speakers E.63 Mastering Facebook Live with Mari Smith
• World of Speakers E.52: Using Twitter to make more connections and get hired with Sam Kelly
• World of Speakers E.48: Level-up your speaking business with Josh Linkner
• World of Speakers E.58: How to use social media to get more bookings with Ted Rubin

Author Bio:

Charles Richard possesses over 10 years of experience in the business analysis profession. He has written dozens of tech and non-tech pieces on the renowned publication. He also enjoys mentoring BA professionals and his well-rounded knowledge in engineering concepts provided an easy way to make non-technical people understand basic theories. Currently, he is working at TatvaSoft UK. you can visit the website https://www.tatvasoft.co.uk/ to know more about his company.

This was originally posted on SpeakerHub Skillcamp.