You’re pretty savvy and knowledgeable about how you manage your business profiles on social media. But there are always emerging trends and insights redefining the rules for what types of posts are good for business and which are bad. Based on some of the latest metrics, here’s a rundown and gentle reminder of what you should never post on your event planner social media pages, along with social media mistakes you shouldn't be making with your strategies.
1. Not Keeping up to Date Before Posting
Before you repurpose a meme or retweet what you believe to be a viral tweet, do some homework. Popularity on social media is fleeting, and what’s wildly hilarious today could be incredibly offensive tomorrow. Stay up to date with any pop culture trends before associating your event planning business with anything. Avoid gaffes and missteps altogether by staying out of the hit-and-miss viral trends.
2. Confusing Personal with Business
A well-developed business social media strategy will involve posting personality, fun, and entertaining sentiments. But be mindful not to blur the lines between your personal page ideas and your brand identity on the business page. Draft social media rules for yourself to adhere to before posting anything on your business profiles.
3. Getting Roped into Polarizing Conversations
In community threads of conversation, it can be incredibly rewarding to jump in and comment on behalf of your event planning business. When you see group or feed questions asking about anything related to New York events, event planning referrals, or tips, responding professionally could result in new clients. But be careful. Some of those threads can go off the rails in a hurry. And you don’t want your business to be associated with rabbit hole ventures that lead to taboo topics like religion, politics, or conspiracies that could polarize your target audience against your brand.
4. Forgetting to Edit Before Hitting ‘Post’
It might sound obvious to be told to check your grammar and punctuation before posting on social media. But you’d be surprised how easily a misplaced comma or typo can sneak in there on a company post. Create a posting process you can adhere to that includes an editing checklist or grammar checker, like Grammarly or Copyscape. And as you develop your social media content calendars, copy and paste those polished posts to avoid the risk of accidental typing mishaps. Poor grammar of any kind will always reflect poorly on your brand, even in the conversational arena of social media.
5. Neglecting Public Retractions
If you make a mistake with your business post, be public about fixing it. For example, if you make a post that features the wrong dates and times for an upcoming event, don’t just delete the post. Instead, comment on the original post with an edit and disclaimer correcting the mistake. And then offer a new post, apologizing for the mistake and presenting corrected information. Your audience will be forgiving about occasional misprints. But they’ll think you’re being shady if you try to just delete those posts without addressing them.
6. Posting Inconsistently
Event planners lead hectic lives and manage jam-packed schedules. But don’t overlook a proper social media calendar of posting frequency. Waiting to only post when you have an event to share or a whim of inspiration fancies you won’t generate any traction or build a loyal audience. Instead, commit to a posting frequency you can handle, with relevant and personality-infused sentiments your fans will appreciate.
In general, follow this general best practice of posting frequency:
- Instagram & Facebook - 1-2 times per week
- Twitter - 5-10 daily tweets
- Pinterest - 5-30 daily pins
- LinkedIn - 20 monthly posts
7. Always Asking for Something
Don’t be salesy with your company social media profiles. These aren’t the platforms to use for high-pressure anything. These are conversational platforms that offer value, provide insights, and improve your engagement with a target audience. This means you can’t always be asking for something. Instead, create a healthy balance between offering and requesting. Be a social media giver from time to time, in a business sense. Asking people to like, share, buy tickets, refer business, or other requests will only burnout your audience over time.
8. Buying Your Audience
Just don’t. We know it’s available, and there are plenty of brands out there that actually buy followers and interactions on social media. Your core audience will recognize inauthenticity when they see it. And your metrics won’t ever be valuable to your marketing strategy. There just aren’t any benefits to artificial engagements for your business online.
9. Not Including Images and Videos
Today’s interactions on social media are driven primarily by video and photo engagement. The days of stagnant text-only posts simply won’t generate results. If you really want your audience to stop scrolling, it’s the video message or well-staged photo that will garner attention. And generic won’t cut the mustard, either, because everyone’s posting video and image assets. So, you’ll have to be creative and adopt a strategy for producing great visual content that captures your audience’s attention.
10. Ignoring Comments or Questions
If you’re posting on your event planning social media profiles, you’re aiming for engagements. Likes and shares are great, but make sure you’re also prepared to respond to comments and answer questions. When someone takes the time to type a message to you, not responding or taking too long to respond will prompt them to ask elsewhere. Set up your notifications, so you become aware the second someone messages you. And then develop a process and timeline for responding. This engagement strategy should also include follow-up steps to keep the conversation going whenever possible.
Bonus Tips
To round up this list of insights for the best results with your event planning business’ social media profiles, here are a few bonus nuggets of advice to consider:
- Don’t forget to develop and implement a hashtag strategy
- Healthy competition is a good thing
- Avoid bait-and-switch tactics
- Be transparent about how people can connect with you
- Make sure messaging is consistent with your brand voice
Keep these social media strategy tips in mind as you develop and grow your business profiles online. And if you really want to meet and engage your target audience, make sure you have an exhibitor space at The Event Planner Expo 2023! Get on the official waitlist now to reserve your spot!
