Social Media Platforms for Events: Part One

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With the international phenomenon of social media is is the perfect, free way of getting an event noticed, reviewed and communicated. It’s being used internally and externally in companies and is the main aspect in digital marketing (Keenan, 2015). With areas of consumer discussions, direct promotions, hashtags and visual marketing all being covered by this blast of social connectivity it is one that has been taken on my most companies worldwide.

 Lets start with Facebook 

over 500,000 million people are signed up to use  facebook and it is currently the biggest platform of social  media. Facebook allows people to do a number of things which would help a company in it’s marketing. Sharing moments, other peoples posts and photos is one way of sharing what you yourself is doing but also what other people are doing. By the public sharing a personal view or a post that the company have shared it will get the brand aware and the news spread. All their friends and friends of friends (depending on their privacy setting) will be able to view their share and the ‘word of mouth’ marketing technique will soon appear, and as seen in the video more people trust what users say rather than advertisements.

Another area that can be explored on facebook is creating and joining events. This is fantastic tool which is used by many events companies which can make the public aware of their event, feel included and an area in where they can keep updated. You can also see who is attending and if the numbers are high, it will show a sense of a popular, well know event.

2dDdk-UhTwitter

With 289,000,000 active users on twitter today and 135,000 new users everyday twitter is a close runner up to facebook (Twitter, 2015). With twitter it allows users to share their opinions via a ‘tweet’ in 140 characters or less. This can be through a message or media and it reaches out the the followers that twitter account has. Like facebook these can be shared by ‘retweeting’. Twitter is a very active platform for digital marketing as it reaches out to thousands. An event can make an account and then gain their followers by direct marketing or through other social media. This way they can promote their event, get market research, gather feedback, customer communication and gain brand awareness.

Another way the event can become know on twitter is by companies using the hashtag. By ‘hashtagging’ certain words or phrases it becomes searchable by the public and they can stumble across your account. This hashtag system also gives a sense of community as people at event will often be encouraged to hashtag something at the event itself. This giving a good feel to the experience and sharing the experience to others.

The # is not only used in Twitter but many other social media sites now. Facebook have introduced it and is used in the same sense as twitter is. Instagram and Pinterest also include it in their sites, but their main body of interest is their digital media. This is an ever growing social media area and one which will discussed in more depth in Social Media Platforms: Part Two as well as social media mobile phone apps.

Social Media Sites Mentioned:

REFERENCES

KEENAN, J., 2015. Social Media – Who, Why & How? Part One. [lecture notes]. Digital Media Practices and Platforms. The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen Business School, room 224, 27 March.

PEDERSEN, S., 2015. Motivations for Using Social Media Part 1. [lecture notes]. Digital Media Practices and Platforms. The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen Business School, room 224, 20 February.

ROSE, K., 2015. UK Social Media Statistics 2015. [online]. 6 January 2015. Available from: http://www.rosemcgrory.co.uk/blog/ [Accessed 14 April 2015].

SBRTECHNOLOGIES BISWAJIT SINGH, 2013. Social Media Marketing — How it Affects Your Business. 17 September. Available from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDA864UskXc [Accessed 14 April 2015].

TWITTER, HUFFINGTON POST, EMARKETER., 2015. Twitter Statistics. [online]. Statistic Brain. Available from: http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/ [Accessed 14 April 2015].

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