Your Sponsors are Looking at Your Engagement Numbers, and Here's Why

While you may consider social media presence to be standard due to trendiness, having a well thought-out social media campaign is actually essential to proving whether or not your event attained its goals with hard numbers and, most importantly to your client and sponsors, proving that it was a financially successful effort.

When you incorporate social media into your events, your engagement numbers will be important data to analyze for several parties relating to your event. How many people that are interacting with your social media campaigns, and how they're interacting with them, will be insights to how successful the event was to your business, your clients, and your sponsors.Once your event is over, your sponsors want to see that they achieved a positive return on investment (ROI). In exchange for helping fund your event, sponsors are expecting that their name and message reaches a wider audience and garners a more positive reputation. When your guests engage with your event's social media – Instagraming photo ops, Tweeting with your hashtag, checking in on Facebook – your sponsor's name will reach far beyond just the actual attendees of the event if you plan your campaigns accordingly. Having their name on these images that are being spread exponentially through your guests' networks has the potential to greatly increase their audience or client base, and if their name is then associated with cool, exciting events and groups of people your event will help elevate their brand reputation.They'll also likely be taking your conversion rates into consideration. This is how they can help translate more abstract metrics, like brand reputation, into specific numbers on how these efforts will have a financial return. Social media marketing is the transitional experience that consumers are looking for now in between direct advertising and an actual purchase. Your social media campaigns are meant to create a personality for your brand that consumers can identify with and connect to, and therefore be more likely to want to support. Conversation rates measure the success your social media efforts have in creating actionable steps towards bridging the gap between engaging and consuming. How this is measured varies depending on the client, the goals, and the platform. It can mean increase in traffic to your client's website, signing up for mailing lists, downloading premium content, upgrading to paid memberships, or, of course, buying products or services.Here are some tips on improving your amplification and conversion rates:

• Visuals are key. Posts that have visual content are much more likely to be engaged with than posts that are only text across all platforms. Make sure there are plenty of photo ops throughout your event, and be sure to include a subtle presence from your sponsors in your visuals. A backdrop for taking photos with your sponsor and event's name on it is an effortless way to do this.
• Have an optimized event website. If you'll be having your guests link to your client's website in their posts, make sure the landing page has clear, enticing actions to take. Offer a free download or free trial, encourage signing up for future communications, or advertise any special deals your client has to offer.
• Create shareable content that has an appeal to people outside of your event. Having your guests' networks liking or favoriting their posts is great. Having your guests' networks going on to share those posts themselves is even better. Humor is a sure way to have this happen, as is encouraging your guests to post about inspiring quotes or helpful tips they've learned from your event.
• Keep the line of communication open. If social media marketing is based on building a relationship with potential consumers, make sure they don't feel like they're talking into a void. Or else, what's the difference between creating a social media campaign and creating an ad in a magazine? Share your favorite posts and reply to your favorite comments. Don't ignore negative feedback, either. It's a great opportunity to provide a positive customer service experience.
• Diversify your strategy so that it appeals to a variety of platforms, types of social media users, and types of posts.

Essentially, your sponsors will be looking to your social media campaign as an advertisement for them, and they'll be expecting the same goals and analyzing your results as any marketer would. So, not only should you be sure to create an exciting, engaging social media strategy, but take care to include a presence from your sponsors in your campaign as well.