How to Use Hashtags to publicise your event

When you start promoting your events, social media is the most effective marketing tool. But with over 3 billion social media users, you have to be clever about your strategy to ensure you get noticed. A great way to assist is using hashtags to your benefit. Using a hashtag on your posts will help you to increase your brand visibility and hopefully your ticket sales!

How to create a great event hashtag

You can even use hashtags during your event to engage sponsors or to generate interest with potential attendees.

Effective event hashtags need to be:

• Relevant: They need to be industry specific. E.g – if you run  events targeted at students you need to use hashtags that they will pick up , #studentnightlife
• Unique: #cakebakingclass this is most certainly relevant to the speciifc industry, but it’s not unique. This means that other companies will more than likely be using this for their events thus meaning your profile may get lost.
• Use capital letters. Capital letters purely make it so much more readable – #SocialNightExpo is a lot easier to read than #socialnightexpo.

Using your hashtag: Before your event

Once you come up with your hashtag – stick with it! You need to ensure consistency throughout posts and if you start changing up the hashtags youuse – it will confuse your followers.

As you post relevant content on the weeks/days leading to your event, it’s crucial to use your hashtag to sparkonline conversations about your event. Most prominently, twitter and instagram are the two main social media platforms that utilise hashtags however, Facebook andpinterest have also adopted them in their algorithms. 

TOP TIP: Add your 1 branded hashtag to your profile bio. This is the first thing your followers will see when they come to your page. 

Using your event hashtag: During your event

You’ve got a hashtag – but you need people using it. Include it on any flyers, posters and any screens around the room. It can be costly, but setting up a branded photo booth with your hashtag can be great for publicity.

TOP TIP: During your event, tweet regular updates all using the hashtag.

Using your event hashtag: After your event

After your event, it’s important to keep the hashtag alive. Encourage attendees to share their favourite pics using your hashtag. This will also give you a huge bunch of content to use on your social media pages. The real-life pictures of regular people enjoying themselves might just be enough to persuade potential attendees to purchase tickets!