Imagine increasing your total post reach on Facebook by 191%, total engaged by 286%, and new page likes by 188% over the prior week. During the week of November 7-13, Spectra Venue Management at the Miami Beach Convention Center did just that through an innovative marketing campaign they developed to promote the International Auto Show hosted at our facility.
Thanks to some research and ingenuity, our campaign grew the social media profiles of our venue and the event, while enhancing the attendee’s experience and allowing them to interact with an entire community of car enthusiasts.
So, what did they do and how did they do it? By following these three Facebook marketing musts, Spectra Venue Management at the Miami Beach Convention Center brought the Auto Show some serious attention:
ALWAYS create an event page
Through your event page, attendees have access to important event information – time, date, location, directions, ticket link, description, website, etc. They’ll also be notified if any changes are made. As the event planner, you can see who is ‘interested’ or ‘going’ to your event.
Event pages are a great way to spread the word about your event to Facebook followers and their friends on an organic level and a much wider, more targeted audience on a paid level. If you visit our Miami Beach Convention Center Facebook Page, you’ll see events posted for all our upcoming events through April of 2016.
Rich, quality content is KEY!
Be strategic while continuously posting about your event on both the event page and your organization’s page. While this is a great way to spread positive PR and interest, be careful not to post too frequently or post articles that fail to generate excitement as this could have the opposite effect; followers may switch off notifications or worse – unfollow your page altogether.
Through Facebook insights, you can analyze which posts are most successful based on engagement and what time of day seems to generate the most user activity. Use that information to your advantage when planning upcoming posts.
Monitor & Interact
Cover the event closely and get all of the attendees involved through the use of hashtags, contests, games, pictures, and real-time updates. This gets people interacting with and talking about the event.
When you generate discussion, you’re able to reach Facebook users beyond your followers. For the Auto Show, we created a trivia game called #GuessThatCar. Each day, a close up picture of a vehicle was posted, prompting followers to guess the featured car. This helped us promote the vendors and the show itself while creating buzz in the form of a competitive game.
Helpful Hint: If you love the idea of a great Facebook marketing campaign, but aren’t comfortable implementing it yourself, reach out to the facility hosting the event to see if they can manage it for you.
Brooke Millea is the marketing manager for Spectra Venue Management at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
