You’re an event planner with a unique set of skills that allows you to transform corporate events and social celebrations into over-the-top magical experiences. You’re creative at curating engaging events, developing themes, and energizing a room. But what about your social media presence?
Running your own event planning business requires just as much enthusiasm and creativity, especially when it comes to marketing and social media efforts. Take a look at your engagement rates online in recent weeks or months. Crickets? Keep reading to identify other signs that your audience might be yawning at your social media, and learn techniques to bring your over-the-top event planning skills to your social platforms.
1. Broadcasting without Interaction
There’s a social media marketing misconception among businesses and event planning pros that posting is good enough. Unfortunately, just committing to a posting schedule and relying on auto-posting automation isn’t going to build your audience or inspire social media results. If you’re broadcasting announcements, statements, CTAs, and news without interacting or prompting responses, you’re not really engaging anyone.
Remember, social media channels are intended to be conversational platforms. So, if you feel you’re broadcasting without inspiring conversation, go back to basics. Delegate someone to monitor and manage your social media channels. Curate posts that ask questions, tap into trending topics, and demonstrate personality. It’s the human element that matters and drives engagement. Posting on Tuesdays and forgetting about it won’t generate social success.
2. Little to No Sharing or Commenting
Check your social media analytics. Have your likes, follows, shares, and comments dropped off in recent weeks or months? If so, it’s a sign your social media pages are inspiring yawns and continuous scrolling.
Turn things around with renewed energy in your posts. Do a live video or post reels and have a conversation with your audience. Show a behind-the-scenes look about an event you’re planning. Share brilliant images of incredible designs and venues. And don’t be afraid to remind your audiences to “like,” “share,” and “follow” your profiles.
3. Unfollows Soon After Following
Your social media marketing data will also tell you how many unfollows or unsubscribers you have. Check those metrics to see if there are trends worth noting. For example, if you notice fans unfollowing not long after recently following, it’s a sign your content isn’t connecting well with your audience.
To fix this problem, revisit your content creation strategies. Make sure the posts you put out there resonate with them, not you. Speak their language. Address their common pain points. Provide them with value either in event planning tips, community news, with helpful resources, and more. And don’t forget; be human. No one engages with a robot, so infuse every piece of content with your event planning personality and brand image.
4. You’re Not Generating Interest
You might feel like your content is good, your social media posting frequency is good, and your interactions are good. But for some reason, you’re not getting leads or inspiring followers to visit your website. No one’s asking you for help with their events. If this sounds familiar, it’s another indicator that your social media strategy isn’t working like you want.
Think of social media as a living, breathing outlet. It’s a direct line to your audiences. And some of them need you now, while others won’t need you until next year. The social strategy you put in place last year might not resonate with them this year. It’s recommended that you revisit your strategies routinely to make changes that allow you to shift with your audience's preferences and needs. Changes could be more significant, like if your audience is using TikTok more than Facebook, requiring you to change your channel focus. Or changes could be minor, like frequency of posting or seasonal content topics. Just be mindful of constantly evolving your strategy in line with your target audience.
5. Posts Are Too Much About You
If your social media profiles are losing steam, with drop-offs in interactions, check your posts. Review your recent content and separate each into categories - posts about you and posts about them. If the list of posts about you is way longer than the posts about them, you’re inspiring yawns, not clicks.
Consider revisiting your content strategy again and reworking your posts. Yes, you want to ask and instruct your followers to visit your site and book you for their events. But social media profiles aren’t the venue for ads. The most engaging posts are those that offer more than they ask. So, look to provide valuable insights, tips, tricks, and news that your prospects want to see. Position that content in a way that feels like you’re addressing their pain points and helping them. The best practices are to use the 10:1 rule, where you post 10 things about others for every one post you make about yourself.
6. Slow Response to Engagement
Essentially, you’ll teach your social audience how to interact with you. And if you’re slow to respond to questions online or absent altogether when others engage, you’re teaching them that you don’t have time to interact. Over time, your audience will stop interacting with you.
While you’re diligent about developing your social media marketing strategy, don’t forget to also create a strategy for account management, so you can immediately respond and interact with those who engage. You can then teach them that you value their engagement and are available as a trusted resource.
7. Content Is Too Broad or Generalized
Do you have the same few people who “like” your posts as your only interactions? Do you feel your posts are lagging in driving traffic elsewhere? This could be the result of your social media being too generalized. If you’re focused on trying to be all things to all people in a broad and generalized sense, you’ll struggle to drive any next-step results.
Consider reviewing your sales funnels and strategies and make sure you’re executing in a way that generates interest and moves those interested prospects into doing something. You’ll realize, too, that niche topic posts are more effective than broad-stroked topics. So, look to create posts that speak to smaller pools of your audience in a personalized or customized way.
Do any of these social media marketing scenarios sound familiar? Consider adopting new methods and strategies with your event planning business. And if you feel your marketing needs more than a social media rework, you need to get in the room at The Event Planner Expo 2023! The industry’s leading marketers and business leaders will be on hand to share all the best techniques and methods for growing your event planning business online! Click here to learn more about The Expo this October, including available exhibitor space where you can get more leads than you can all year!
