Do you want to be an internet sensation? Here are five ways to increase your online engagement.
1. Instagram
If you don’t have an account, get one. This is the fastest growing social media platform and it’s a great way to promote your product or service, especially if what you do is especially photogenic (ie event styling, catering, floristry). Use hashtags such as #eventprofs, hashtag your location and service, and ensure that you have a link to your website in your bio. Ensure you post regularly, post good quality photos and maintain a branded look and feel by imposing a style guide on your posts.
2. Create a free ebook
Are you an expert in some aspect of event management? Can you add value to your clients and stakeholders by writing a guide to your niche? Maybe you could create a template for a brief that can be downloaded from your website? Perhaps you could write a piece titled 5 mistakes people make (and how to avoid them)? Provide this for free as a download from your website and promote it on your social media channels. Once people get to your website, ask them to opt-in to your database by providing their contact details (you can do this opt-in pop up in Mailchimp), and then they can continue on to download the ebook for free.
3. Make it beautiful
There is no excuse for an ugly website or marketing materials with the amount of free tools available online. Download Canva, a free graphic design program that allows you to create your own fliers, posters, presentations and invitations using their templates. If your website needs a refresh, consider moving it to a WordPress site. WordPress is an open source (meaning free and continually updated by the online community) platform that provides free templates as well as enormous amounts of support, as well as a ever growing suite of plug-ins that can customise your site in a variety of ways.
4. Be a giver
Develop an online presence based on helpfulness and generosity. Answer people’s questions, help solve their problems, inspire and motivate your audience so that when the day comes that you might want to convert them into a newsletter subscriber, warm lead or paying customer, they already know and like you.
5. Keep the party on one platform
If you’re on Instagram, keep the party there; don’t post a teaser that encourages people to click over to your website for more information, to complete the message or to buy something. Why? People will lose interest. To quote Jadah Sellnah, the founder of Simple Green Smoothies, it would be weird to be dancing with someone in a club and then invite them straight back to your bedroom. You need to keep dancing with them, maybe exchange numbers at the end of the night, go on a few dates and then you can you invite them upstairs. You need to build credibility so that in the end, they’re the one asking you out.
