A look at “HOW TO: Plan and Promote Events With Social Media” by Mashable, from a student’s perspective.
The tips given by that article are good for planning large events, but what about an organization that plans multiple events, and often?
A few things to consider:
- Is the event open to the public? What is the scope of the network?
- Does it reoccur?
Notifying
Facebook is a great and easy way to promote events. But it only gets easy when you already have a group, sending invites to individuals is no fun. Do not use this to promote weekly meetings, it gets annoying. Also, make sure you have a general group and send invites for events, don’t use groups for events (unless it’s for people organizing the event).
Meetup.com is great for monthly meetups, usually open meets where anyone is welcome, but can be limited to private for only members.
Provide a Calendar
Google Calendars lets you share calendars with others, so they can view events however they want. This is great for people who don’t want to have to check for events. You can even get Facebook events to your Google Calendar.
Photos
Photos should go to Flickr and Facebook. Both are useful. Flickr allows higher quality photos and is better for sharing. Facebook lets you tag people and makes it more social with your relevant network. On Flickr, create a pool and let people know what tag to use so they can be searchable.
Still Growing
For students, the best way right now to get an event out is via Facebook invite, because it’s easier to reach students. The main problem being how do you get the invite out to people you don’t send invites to? The only way to see what events others are going to is via the Events page.
