Engaging attendees on social media is a measure of an event’s success, even though planners and marketers typically face challenges when encouraging online action.
Social Media Marketing World 2016 is a case study on how to use Twitter to spur online activity from guests, as well as speakers and promoters. In three days, its official hashtag — #SMMW16 — racked up 968,410,796 impressions.
Social Media Marketing World Discouraged One-and-Done Tweeting
As the purpose of a hashtag is to drive and categorize conversations, tweeting once and ignoring resulting discussions can limit its effectiveness.
Doing so draws attention to neither the trend nor other users’ tweets.
Social Media Marketing World organizers encouraged attendees to frequently post and interact with each other by positioning Twitter as the go-to communication platform. They did this by:
- Featuring keynote speakers who are active on Twitter, allowing guests to ask questions and interact with them
- Selling virtual tickets, making social media the easiest way for customers to talk to other guests
- Offering incentives to tweet, which will be covered near the end of this post
In total, #SMMW16 saw almost 70,000 tweets from more than 13,000 users, meaning guests were active on Twitter throughout the event. There were almost 34,000 original posts, more than 32,000 replies and around 3,900 retweets.
Discourage one-and-done tweeting using the same approaches as Social Media Marketing World, and your next event should see a rise in hashtag impressions.
It Harnessed Influencers
Activity from influencers — thought-leaders with large online followings — is largely responsible for earning almost a billion impressions for #SMMW16.
Whereas the typical Twitter user has less than 210 followers, influencers can have thousands or millions.
The value of popular users tweeting your hashtag is clear when examining the amount of impressions they earn.
Here are the top five #SMMW16 posters, in terms of total impressions during the event and a month leading up to it:
Social Media Examiner, the event’s organizer, out-tweeted these influencers with 180 million potential impressions. But that’s because the publication posted almost 600 times.
Similarly, many other users generated high impression numbers due to the volume of tweets they sent.
IPP (impressions per post) takes this into consideration. The metric averages the number of impressions a user generates, showing how many a single tweet earns.
Based on IPP, here are the top five #SMMW16 posters:
Whether you place more value on IPP or raw impressions, both numbers will rise as thought-leaders tweet an event’s hashtag.
READ: How Coke Generated $100,000 Worth of Free Twitter Impressions in a Day
It Used a Short Hashtag
Using a short hashtag over a long one makes it easier to tweet, which helps boost activity.
Including a space and the hashtag symbol, #SMMW16 only takes up eight out of 140 characters.
This allows people to easily post their thoughts, instead of struggling to work within Twitter’s limit. Plus, users have space to add in extra hashtags to increase exposure.
Keep in mind, data from Buddy Media — which researchers drew by analyzing engagement from more than 320 Twitter handles — suggests you shouldn’t include more than two hashtags per tweet:
On top of these benefits, a short hashtag is also easier to type and remember than a long one. #SMMW16 is self-explanatory and to-the-point. It doesn’t need to be longer and couldn’t be shorter.
You likely won’t see much activity if a hashtag too difficult to key into a smartphone.
It Offered Incentives to Post with #SMMW16
Sometimes, the biggest challenge to running an event that’s a social media smash is the first hurdle: Getting attendees to post.
Event marketers and planners may need a plan to incentivize attendees to take to social media, especially if audience members aren’t closely connected to their social profiles.
To encourage tweeting, try:
- Offering prizes, such as a free trial, to the most engaged users
- Awarding coupons to people who follow one of your social accounts
- Giving perks, including discounts, to the person who posts the top tweet
Social Media Marketing World overcame this obstacle due to the nature of its audience. Marketers and community managers were inherently incentivized to post because of their interest in social networks.
Specifically, they used the hashtag to:
- Share their original and relevant content pieces, bringing traffic to their profiles and websites
- Interact with social media thought-leaders by asking questions or demonstrating their own social savvy
- Make connections with peers and other like-minded users
And since the bulk of people tweeted about — and during — presentations and workshops, almost two-thirds of posts came from mobile devices.
Based on its audience, an event may need original tactics to incentivize social posting. Your guests may not even hit the login button if you fail to address the need for encouragement.
But once you do, you should see post after post pop up.
Wrapping Up
One of the quintessential digital marketing events, Social Media Marketing World 2016 generated almost a billion Twitter impressions in three days by:
- Incentivizing users to post, ensuring a select few weren’t dominating online conversations
- Crafting a short, easy-to-remember hashtag
- Getting influencers to regularly tweet with the official hashtag, expanding scope
- Encouraging guests to tweet more than once and interact with each other
Although each event differs based on its goal and audience, marketers and organizers can certainly use #SMMW16 as a case study about spurring guest participation and interaction on social platforms.
A billion impressions is a lofty target. But with the right combination of guests, thought-leaders and motivations to tweet, it may be more realistic than you think.
Keyhole is a tracker that provides keyword and hashtag analytics for Twitter and Instagram.