How to Utilise Your Social Media Communications While at an Event

Our top suggestions to get your event messages out there

Choose your channels

There are plenty of social media channels to choose from, however, you want to use the channels that will best suit your target audience and following respectively. For example, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook each have different audience demographics and general purposes, with LinkedIn being more business focused and the majority of Instagram users being under 35. When attending an event, it can be really beneficial to post not only before but also during the event, to actively engage other attendees and maximise your post’s reach, all whilst letting your followers know what you’re up to.


Support your wording

When posting on social media at an event, the majority of the time there is either an event sponsor that you can mention, or a specific hashtag to use – or both! Mentioning and using hashtags is a quick and easy way for your post to reach more people and potentially gain more engagement.


CAPTURE THE MOMENT

It’s well known that images and videos help your content stand out and can help increase post engagement. Therefore, don’t forget to include candid photos from the event; as these add authenticity to your posts, for example a photo of your team at a stand, or one of the speakers. Visuals makes it clearer for people to understand what the event is about and what’s happening.


EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT

At an event like a trade show, normally several employees attend on behalf of a company. A good idea to help boost your posts reach and engagement, is to ask your employees to engage – like, comment and share to their own social media channel. Or, your attending employees could even publish their own posts tagging the business page and showcasing that they’re attending the event to their own followers.


PLAN OUT THE DAY

Another way to make the most out of your social channels at an event is to plan the content beforehand. If you know what the event entails, you can plan ahead what posts you want to publish and when, in order to maximise engagement. This saves you having to make a quick decision in the moment about what to post, and saves you trying to think of content ideas while having a busy day out! For example, if you know there is a talk you want to attend at 3pm, get ready to post about it.


PUBLISH SOME ‘FUN’ CONTENT

Within the Financial Services Sector, it is common for social media channels and content to be professional. While we suggest this professional tone continues when posting during an event, you could always take a more lighthearted approach. For example, sharing photos of food or a drinks reception adds character to your channel and makes it feel more relatable to real life.


IT DOESN’T END THERE

You can continue to utilise your social media channels even after the event has finished. Whether you want to produce a round up blog of the event to share, or do an overall post of the day/days. Referring back to the event a few days later can again, help your post performance, while also spreading the message to people who may not have seen your live event posts.


WE CAN SUPPORT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS


How to Create an Engaging Webinar

Our top tips for setting up, executing, & promoting a webinar.

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Agree your objective

Ensure you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve from your webinar. Whether it’s a panel discussion on the industry’s hot topics, a product demo, or a presentation to showcase your industry expertise and market innovations, it’s important to agree your objective(s) up-front.   


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APPOINT
YOUR PANEL

Don’t forget to confirm your panel participants early on. Select confident speakers who are experts in their fields, and ensure they are all free on your desired date. We suggest having a Host, Moderator, Speaker (internal), and Guest Speaker (external).


DETERMINE YOUR PROSPECT AUDIENCE

Make sure you understand your target audience, their needs, the questions your webinar will answer for them, and the type of content that will engage them. Generate an audience list using email addresses or more general details such as job titles and companies.


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CREATE ENGAGING,
THOUGHT-PROVOKING CONTENT

Content is the building block upon which your webinar conversation is structured. Make sure the topic is relevant and useful for your audience (industry insights, recent market innovations, survey results, or lively debates are just some of the formats you could work with). It must be up-to-date with current trends – the timelier the topic, the more engaged your audience is likely to be.


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TIME TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBINAR

Do not expect your audience to find out about the session themselves! Use social media and email campaigns to promote your webinar and encourage attendance, so you can make the most of your expert panel and their insights.


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PRACTICE, PRACTICE,
PRACTICE

Prior to your webinar, it is important to have a rehearsal session to make sure your speakers and moderators feel comfortable using the platform and talking to the camera. Ensure beforehand that video and audio are of a high quality.


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TRY NOT TO LOSE
YOUR AUDIENCE

Engage your audience with the use of interactive tools such as questions and polls during the webinar, if your platform allows. Don’t let them become disinterested after 10 minutes!


LET US MAKE WEBINARS HAPPEN FOR YOU


Using social media in lockdown: A guide for brokers and MGAs

With the coronavirus pandemic ruling out face-to-face meetings for the foreseeable future, many insurance professionals are now turning to digital means and social media platforms to network and drive leads.

In this guide, we talk you through how you should be using social media to enhance your business.

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Become active on LinkedIn

For those who aren’t already active across LinkedIn, now is the time to set up both a personal and company account on the platform. If you do have an account, invest some time in updating your personal profile to ensure it is up-to-date with your current position and a suitable profile picture. Similarly, your company page should also be completed – with basic information filled in, a cover photo, and an optimised version of your logo.

If you need any assistance setting up a personal or company profile on LinkedIn, contact us to discover how we can help.   

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GET
CONNECTED

Once you’re confident your LinkedIn account is presentable, the next step is to make sure you’re connected with your colleagues and clients. This helps you to keep up with industry news or company updates while the usual face-to-face interactions remain stunted, whilst also remaining front-of-mind with clients by putting yourself digitally in their view.

Alongside connections, LinkedIn also allows you to ‘follow’ individuals whom you may not know personally but whose content and business insights you are interested in e.g. Richard Branson. You can even further expand your network by joining relevant groups of like-minded professionals e.g. Insurance Professionals UK.

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START POSTING

Once your profile is set up and connections have been added, it’s time to start posting. Whether you’re using your personal or business account – make sure your content is relevant, engaging, and professional. Common ideas for content include promoting upcoming events, company news, product launches, and celebrating achievements – to name a few.

Stay on trend with Twitter

Twitter is another great platform to keep you informed about trending topical conversations, industry events, and news threads. As with LinkedIn, it’s important to follow reputable accounts and ensure that your Tweets adhere to your company’s social media guidelines (if applicable). If you’re unsure of what accounts you should be following, Lloyd’s is always a safe bet – along with publications such as Insurance Times, Insurance Age, Insurance Post. And just like LinkedIn, Twitter can be a great tool for monitoring the views of both your industry peers and your target audience.


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BECOME A LINKEDIN PUBLISHER

One way to stay active on LinkedIn is by publishing your insights. With the lockdown pushing more insurance professionals online than ever before, now is the perfect time to start showcasing your expertise via LinkedIn articles. Whether it’s a blog regarding your new e-Portal, or a timely thought leadership piece about how the industry can support SMEs – such articles can not only increase your personal following
on LinkedIn, but potentially lead to new
business too.

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ENGAGE WITH COLLEAGUES
AND CLIENTS

While we’re not currently able to bump into clients at events, or catch up with a colleague over a coffee, it’s still incredibly important to keep in touch. As we’re all now in the habit of catching up on work-related matters via email, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, LinkedIn provides a more casual platform to actively engage those within your network. Taking the time to interact with content shared by work friends or clients can also go a long way in maintaining relations and nudging along business conversations.

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THINK
VISUALLY

Creating an engaging social media post isn’t
just about content; presentation also plays a fundamental role. Considering that your goal is to quickly capture the attention of someone scrolling through their newsfeed, one simple way to do this is to include an eye-catching (and relevant) image - posts with relevant images receive 94% more views than those without. Visual consistency is also key in establishing your brand’s identity online, that’s why we suggest developing and using banner templates which contain your brand’s logo, colours, and font.

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ORGANISE
YOUR CONTENT

Beyond creating engaging social media posts, it’s also important to think ahead and create a content calendar. Having a calendar in place allows you to better plan upcoming content and provides a structure for your social media activity. For example, you could create distinct campaigns around a specific product or service each quarter and also factor in space for reactive posts at an upcoming industry event. Hand-in-hand with this more organised approach comes the scheduling of content. Using social media management tools such as Hootsuite, it’s possible to schedule social posts for specific dates and times - months in advance. Scheduling social content also greatly reduces the risk of a making an error when live posting and can be used to create a buffer period to ensure that you always have some content planned for the future.


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HERE TO HELP

If you have any questions, we are happy
to talk this through in more detail -

call us on 020 7265 7890 or contact us here.

It’s all about the awards!

As another sunny week draws to a close, I am sitting at my desk with award ceremonies on my mind. On the one side, am looking back to last Friday and the inaugural Insurance Marketing & PR Awards. On the other, I'm looking forward to next week, when the insurance industry celebrates one of its biggies, The British Insurance Awards, and we also get to celebrate one of our other financial sector specialities when Investment Week presents their Fund Manager of the Year Awards, also being hosted at the Royal Albert Hall on the following night. Then, later in the year, we are proud to now be helping Legal Week Magazine with their own British Legal Awards.

Apart from the slight concern on behalf of my liver & kidneys that it’ll be two nights back to back at the events next week, it does serve as a reminder of the high professional standards the sectors we support strive to achieve and the pride that is rightly felt by those that ultimately gain recognition. The cynics amongst us are often quick to play down their importance, but for me, when I see the pride of those receiving awards and whoops of delight from their colleagues in the room, it fills me with a professional privilege that we get to work with a group of clients and people within them that care passionately about their businesses and strive every day to be the best of themselves.

We are proud to support them, love the diversity of designs we have created, congratulate all the winners and give an equal call to all of those entering for being proud of what they work hard to achieve.

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Here’s a small reminder of last week’s IPMRAs - you can even play Spot the Team!

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