If event marketing is an integral part of your business’ overall strategy, you should be using event content to market on all your channels year-round.

What is event marketing?

Event marketing is a tool used by businesses that utilizes in-person interactions (such as trade shows, exhibits, presentations, etc.) to increase brand awareness and sales for their product or service.

Of course, many businesses will use content marketing to generate buzz about their event in the months and weeks leading up to it. They are probably also posting about the event in the days following, but that’s where event content ends for a lot of marketers.

There are ways, however, to make that content work harder for your business. In fact, 75% of marketers said in 2016 that in-person events are an effective strategy for creating content. So, why isn’t your business utilizing your event(s) to create content year-round?

This article will examine the ways you can re-purpose event content across channels 365 days a year.

Why (And How) You Should Be Using Content to Extend the Life of Your Event Marketing Strategy

1.  Create a lot of videos

During the event, gather footage to piece together engaging videos for your social media and owned channels.

Video is a great way to give social media followers and website visitors an inside look at your events. In fact, 51% of marketers said that video content drives the highest ROI for their businesses.

Some businesses may choose to outsource their videography for events, but even if you have a member of your marketing team gathering footage with their smartphone, you can still create engaging video content. iMovie is a great tool- and very user-friendly for amateur editors- to cut together bits of footage. Website tools such as Adobe Spark and Animoto can also help with your video content. Animoto, in particular, can help you create video content out of photos, as well.

Video content works effectively across a variety of channels. YouTube is the first channel that comes to mind, obviously, but Facebook is another great platform for videos. Keep the accompanying text short, and let the video speak for itself. If you are posting videos on Facebook, make sure that the video is as engaging without sound as it is with sound- since 85% of people actually watch muted videos on this platform.

You can post videos on Instagram, as well. Any videos over 60 seconds, however, will have to be watched on IGTV, although you can post the 60 second “preview” to your feed.

Video isn’t just a great way to increase engagement across social media. It can also increase landing page conversion rates by 80% or more! With numbers like that, creating reusable video content from your event is pretty much a no-brainer. Chances are you have different people following each of your channels, so schedule each video to be posted on several channels at once to increase the number of viewers.

Pro tip: Use the same video clips time and again in new ways for fresh content! Just because a particular clip was posted in a different video doesn’t mean that you can’t reuse it. Change the order of video clips, put some music behind it, and voila! It’s brand new.

For more inspiration, check out our article on the 10 Best Types of Videography to Showcase Your Next Event.

2.  Use themed days or speaker quotes on social media to repost event photos.

High-quality pictures are one of the most popular forms of content for social media so take a lot and find new ways to use them.

The principle behind this strategy is similar to that of videos. You want to take a lot of pictures at each event, either using a professional photographer or a smartphone, and post them on social media with a branded hashtag to promote your event. However, you can get more creative to repurpose your best pictures throughout the year.

For instance, “Throwback Thursday” and “Flashback Friday” are super popular themed days across social media channels. Use the trend with its accompanying hashtag (#TBT and #FBF) to remind followers of the amazing vendors, speakers and networking opportunities at your last event.

Using a tool like Canva, you can also use these pictures to create extra special content. For instance, overlay a quote from one of your speakers on a picture of them at your event. This will give followers a taste of the type of invaluable information they can expect at your event. Posts like these are also highly shareable, which will extend your reach beyond your own network to the networks of your followers.

Adding unique, industry-related holidays to your content marketing calendar is also a great way to repurpose event pictures. For example, July 12th is “New Conversations Day,” which would be a great opportunity to repurpose pictures from your last networking event across social media channels.

3.  Blog posts

Use blog posts to position your business as an industry authority and repurpose various event content.

The beauty of blog posts is that you can write them on any industry-related topic you want! Luckily, your event marketing is all about your industry, so it’s a veritable treasure trove of article topics.

Your business should already be using SEO-friendly blog posts to promote an event, but you can also do deeper dives on event happenings after the fact. Write about the key points discussed by a speaker or profile one of the highest-performing vendors. Spread these throughout your blogging calendar for the year but make them easily accessible in case current events cause you to move articles around.

For instance, if a speaker at your last marketing event spoke about virtual or hybrid events as an emerging trend, now would be the ideal time to write a post about the lessons learned in that session. In the wake of so many in-person events being cancelled due to the pandemic, this would be a great way to create relevant content and keep your blog as current as possible.

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If you haven’t noticed yet, the common thread for extending the life of your event through content marketing is creativity. Set a meeting with your team to brainstorm different ideas and make your event content work for your event marketing strategy year-round.