The Art of Hosting Events on Social (#SMTLive Recap)

Whether hosting events is your full-time profession or you’re simply searching for a new way to connect with your audience, learning how to put together a quality virtual-event on social media is a task new to many of us.

Businesses everywhere are turning to social to keep their brand top-of-mind and solve new audience engagement challenges. Lucky for us, many social platforms have recognized this rising need and are delivering us regular updates and training tools to offer brands assistance in these strange times. 

To learn more about challenges and best practices for hosting a live event on social media, we turned to our friends on #SMTLive for answers. After reviewing the exciting conversation we had with everyone on Twitter, I used the feedback to create a master ‘Social Media Event Checklist’ for anyone in need of guidance.

Hosting Social Media Events Checklist/Social Media Today

Now let’s see what advice our community on #SMTLive had to share on each checkpoint.

Select the right topic for your audience.

We know that live events are a popular trend on social right now, but that doesn’t mean you should be going live just to do it. You need to spend time really thinking about what value you would like to offer your audience.

Conduct the necessary research to make sure you select a topic that genuinely resonates and excites your audience.

Nail down your event plan, agenda, and logistics.

What are your goals for going live? What do you want this experience to look and feel like?

Choose a time that works best for the majority of your audience.

Figure out who needs to be involved to make sure the event runs smoothly. Then make sure to involve your team in all future planning.

Be prepared for going off-script and unexpected detours.

Decide which social platform is best for your event.

You have a variety of options here, both on the major social media platforms and other virtual-communication platforms. Because we are specifically talking about social media events here, let’s just stick to the live-streaming options on social.

To go live on social, you can host on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and even TikTok. 

You probably want to choose a social platform that you already have a significant following on. You can also use a video streaming service to broadcast across multiple platforms.

Promote your event (a lot).

If you are putting all this work into planning and hosting an event, you should put the same amount of effort into getting the word out.

Be extremely clear in your promotions: explain the purpose and value of your event (make sure people know what to expect), share the time and place, give clear instructions as to how people can join.

Here are some great tips for promotion:

Rehearse and practice going live.

Rehearsal is your time to test all the kinks and make sure you have no issues on the day-of.

Test everything! Check everything technical (from internet connection to sound quality to lighting) and review your agenda, talking points, and timing. Basically, make sure nothing can go wrong from a technical standpoint.

Also, use this time to test your background and lighting situation. Make sure people can actually see the event clearly.

Review plans and talking points with everyone involved.

Host your event as planned.

Now is your time to shine. If you’ve done the prep-work, it will show in attendance, content value, video quality, and engagement.

Promoting the event while you’re live is also a good-practice.

Respond to comments and engage with people throughout the event.

Remember to respect your audience’s time. Give yourself plenty of time to set up beforehand and don’t show up late to your own event. If you say it will be an hour, stick to the plan and don’t go overtime.

Follow-up with valuable content and communications.

Keep the momentum going by sharing you video or snippets from the conversation on social and other platforms. There are so many content opportunities that you can take advantage of after the event is over.

Keep on engaging for as long as you can and take advantage of the live feedback. You can also try to share questions and extend the conversation to your other platforms.

There you go. That’s everything you need to start hosting live events on social media. And remember, each production will be easier than the last. Don’t let the fear of going live hold you back from a great event.

If you’re interested in being part of our next Twitter chat, you can learn more and RSVP here. And for all those of you who want to be a regular participant in these chats, sign up here to join our #SMTLive Tuesday Twitter Chat Club.

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