The importance of investing in content marketing when attending big events

Posted

Written by Josh Viney, Social Media Executive

It’s safe to say that over the last few years, the way businesses have been approaching their content marketing at events has shifted drastically. Of course, during the Pandemic, everyone was at home and running in-person events was simply not possible. Fast forward three years and we are in a post-pandemic world where things are now generally back to normal and businesses are starting to take meetings, conferences and events from Zoom back to real life. In this blog, we’re going to discuss the importance of investing in your content marketing when you are attending or hosting these events. 

When we say investing, what do we mean? For this article, we are going to focus on how outsourcing a social media and content team can help you market your event. Compared to other marketing activities, running an event often requires a significant budget. It is therefore vital to capitalise on the event as much as possible. Using an external team of professionals to promote the event and capture a bank of content on the day is a great way to ensure you get more sign-ups and exposure. The marketing efforts around the event aren’t just for the actual event itself, it’s for the build-up and promotion, during the event and also for post-event content too. The idea is you want as much content out of the event as you can get whilst still maintaining a high level of production quality.

There is a variety of content that you can create for an upcoming event that you are either hosting or attending. The three main stages to consider when looking at what to produce would be:

– Before/build-up

– During/at the event

– After/post event

Before the event you want to look at promoting as much as possible, to build hype, attention and generate word of mouth about the event. Depending on the type of event, you may be looking to sell tickets or get registrations beforehand, making this stage vital for your content marketing. The key content strategy is to educate your audience and tell them what the event is all about and why it is worth attending. What’s unique or special about your event compared to others? Are there guest speakers, and valuable connections to be made? These are all questions that need to be asked during the build-up, and the answers are ideal for pre-event content. 

During the event, it is important to showcase as much as possible from the day(s). This is because you want to future-proof content for similar events you may hold at a later date. This footage can then be used for future promotional videos. Short-form video at the event could include content such as interviews with guests, group photos, behind the scenes, filming key segments etc… You want to capture as much as you can and almost build a story of the event from start to finish.

After the event, content can often slow down which is natural as the event has come to a close. However, there is still a lot you can do to create content for your followers. A great way to start this is a ‘thank you’ post showing your gratitude for the support you received around the event. Another idea that springs to mind is an ‘event roundup’ post where you create a highlight reel of the event. You could look at taking in feedback to see what people liked and even didn’t like! This not only allows you to improve for future events but also gives some great messages for testimonial posts.

At MAXX, we are always looking to support clients when they have a big event coming up. Our Head of Social, Jess, recently travelled to Dubai to help one of our clients capture content whilst they exhibited at ArabLab 2023. As a small team at the event, they had so many things to focus on that they couldn’t manage their exhibition and create valuable content at the same time. Bringing Jess gave tremendous value to the client, as not only can she solely focus on the content, but she is also an expert in social media! This is so important because it means the quality of content produced is going to be to be a high standard . We all know how stressful an event can be to plan, so outsourcing someone like Jess for your upcoming event alleviates that stress and passes over responsibilities to someone with expertise in that field. It’s a value-add that cannot be denied. Here’s Jess in action filming some social media content for one of our clients.

 

 

Additionally, we also had the MAXX team visit another one of our clients, Hunts Office, to help them with running and producing their recent sustainability event at their amazing renovated showroom. The event centred around the topic of ESG and making practical and sustainable actions within office spaces. The event included an interesting panel discussion with leading industry experts from the likes of ITV, Orangebox and Savills to name a few. The audience were also given the opportunity to get involved by participating in a Q&A. Our team supported the event with promotions and invites, PA and staging, on-demand recording, slide designs, and full pre, during and post social coverage. We were able to ensure that the event went smoothly through the fantastic work of our team as we successfully conducted the event video and AV as well as filmed vox-pop interviews with attendees and staff, to now promoting the event to other customers and potential prospects. This is just another example of how MAXX can help you host a successful event whilst making the most out of the content opportunities events like this can bring.

 

 

Social media is a powerful and essential promotional tool and it is vital businesses take advantage of the opportunities that can be unlocked when correctly investing into your content marketing at events. Interested in learning more about this? Great! Click here to see Jess and Will discuss event marketing in more detail! If you have an event coming up and want to learn more about how MAXX can help you run a successful campaign, then do not hesitate to get in touch! 

📩 [email protected]