Events – Create, Publicize, and Promote – Part I

Standard disclaimer: The bulk of this blog is devoted to my quest to discover answers to dilemmas that have either been raised by me or by folks within my business circles. I have personally never done anything with creating events as it pertains to using social media as a tool to do so. So, I am in uncharted territory here and may end up raising more questions than I do answer them (smile).

This blog post is the direct result of a recent enhancement to the services that we provide our members of NetWorks! Boise. Our new dedicated group pages are based on a Ning platform and Ning has a rather nice capability to create and publicize member events. As a part of this, it will allow you to send out quite professional looking invitations. There is just one problem and it’s a big one. When invitations to the event are sent out to our member’s mailing list, the invitation is actually not only to the event, it is also to join our network. This might be great for some groups who are designed to be open and will accept membership from just about anybody who meets whatever criteria but, our group site is 100% by invitation only. You must be a member of our formal NetWorks! Boise group in order to be allowed as a member on the site.  “Houston, we have a problem.” And, like Apollo 13, I am faced with a table covered with various pieces of equipment and components as I try to create a device that will allow me to put a square peg in a round hole (smile).

The Challenge: Using social media sites and tools to create and publicize events is a rapidly increasing activity. I am sure that we have all received multiple invitations via email, FaceBook, and other sites. As it turns out, there are just a whole bunch of ways that folks can, and for that matter are, using these tools to assist them in this process. So, the question becomes, what is the best tool, or a combination of tools, available to accomplish this task?

Questions you will need to answer first:

1. Is my goal to only create and publish an event or is it to do that and promote it?
2. Is the event open to the public or closed?
3. Is there a fee or is it free?
4. Do you want to require folks to RSVP? How about register or pay on-line?

What are your criteria for selecting the best tool(s) to use?:

1. Professional invitation? How do you plan/wish to send these out?
2. Promote you, your company, your website, your event and in what order are these important?
3. Ease of finding your event and registering for it?
4. Follow-up on the event in terms of confirmations etc.?
5. Capture contact information for use with future events?

Get ready for Part II tomorrow as we are going to look at: Ning, FaceBook, FaceBook Business Pages, FaceBook Groups, LinkedIn, EventBrite, iContact,  Constant Contact, and Twitterfeed (as well as combinations of these), as possible tools to satisfy our needs.

Thanks for visiting!

Craig

Related articles by Zemanta

• Facebook Fan Pages – The hidden marketing gem! (slideshare.net)
• B2B Social Media: Got Your Toe Wet, Now It’s Time to Swim (socialmediatoday.com)
• How to Add Facebook Events to Google Calendar? (shankrila.com)
• How to Market an Offline Event Online (chrisbrogan.com)
• How to Add Facebook Events to a Google Calendar (jkontherun.com)