With close to 4 billion active users, social media is a goldmine when it comes to marketing. But even though it seems like a land of undying possibilities, you must understand the different types of content that perform best on platforms, or else you could find that you do more harm than good to your brand.
Natural vs traditional content
When talking about content for event social media marketing, you can break it down into two main types: traditional and natural content.
As the title suggests, traditional content is what you would associate with media advertising.
- Infographics
- Blog posts
- Posters
- Professionally shot photos and videos.
All of these have been carefully curated and edited to ensure that it shows the event in the best possible light.
Everything about these has been made to draw you in.
Traditional content
You know those videos of good-looking girls bringing over a few bottles of Dom Perignon with sparklers to a group of beautiful people followed by some slow-motion dancing?
They are perfect examples of tailored video content to promote a club. Everything looks clean and organised, the opposite of what the club might look like on the night!
Another great example of traditional content would be professionally shot images. No matter the event professionally shot images are treasured by attendees.
It’s a way for them to look back and remember how much of a good time they had and promote on their own social media channels to let their followers know how great the event was.
Natural content
Natural content is a mixture of both user-generated content and employee-generated content.
This content is original and created by your followers or employees who have attended your events.
This can come in many different forms such as
- Reviews
- Live stories
- Testimonials
- Videos
- Images
The list goes on!
The majority of Reels, stories and TikToks are made from natural content and this is what really relates to your audience.
Having behind-the-scenes footage of setting up your event or introducing the people who run the event, gives your brand a personality. It opens the door to your followers becoming ‘friends’ with your brand and for you to build a relationship with those regulars that come to your events.
‘Real content’
It is important to show the event as an attendee will witness it.
With the surge in social media and influencers, the ‘real’ has never been more important. You will get called out publicly if you inaccurately advertise; this will cause ticket sales and trust in your brand to plummet.
The use of iPhone footage and other pov footage shows the event in real-time. The less edited and more raw the footage, the more your followers will relate to and trust what you are showing.
They will know exactly what they will be turning up to.
Building trust with your audience
70% of online users trust online reviews and natural content acts as the perfect review.
It is an honest opinion from someone that has no loyalty to your company. This type of content brings with it a sense of authenticity.
For example, if you have attendees posting live stories and tagging you in them, their followers will have visibility of your event. This in turn will drive engagement as it encourages the attendees’ followers to tap into your network which will increase your following and ultimately ticket sales for the next event.
It is important that you make sure you repost, comment and like all content that has been created by attendees.
Show that you appreciate them putting in all that effort. By doing this you are more likely to retain followers and customers as it will encourage people to come to future events. Everyone likes to feel special!
Having a mixture of content on your social media page keeps your audience engaged and your page looking aesthetically pleasing.
The last thing you want to do is bore your follower base with the same stuff going out week after week, this will cause you to lose engagement and ultimately ticket sales.