If you’re running an event, people need to know about it and have all the information required to ensure they turn up in the right place, at the right time and fully prepared. From free, informal get-togethers to conferences where advanced booking and payment is required, it’s a great a help when you have the tools at your disposal to promote and organise it.
Fortunately, there’s now a great selection online to help make your next event a great success, what’s more, many of them help deliver your potential audience to you.
Meetup
Built around the concept of informal get-togethers, this is a great site to help build awareness and create a community, with over nine million members looking for a meetup to match their interests. Especially recommended for regular events targeting a niche audience, knitting in Birmingham anyone? There is a charge for meetup organisers and meetup can facilitate taking payment from attendees. This blog post has some good tips on running successful meet up.
Alternatives: Big Tent, Group Spaces, Doodle
Linked in and Facebook
Both of these social media platforms have event promotion systems available, while neither support payment they are great tools for promoting your event. Facebook suits a more B2C event while LinkedIn has a B2B focus. When people book in they get the chance to tell their friends that they’ve done so, pushing your promotion outside of your own network. The discussion mechanisms on both can also help to create a bit of a buzz before and after events and if you’re running a big or regular event then look at setting up a dedicated page or group. LinkedIn also provides helps deliver potential interested attendees with it’s event search tool allowing users to search for events that match their geography and interests.
Make sure you also promote on: Twitter, with a trailer on YouTube, Craigslist, Gumtree, Biz Nik, Event Span, Upcoming,Eventful and of course your own website, blog and emails.
Eventbrite
If you’re looking for a full event management system with the ability to take online bookings and payment, then Eventbrite has, for good reason, established itself as the market leader. Simple and easy to use, it’s free for free events! Eventbrite also has a range of widgets to allow you set the diary and booking process up on your own website. And it helps deliver an audience, with registered users getting suggestions and social media and search engine promotion. We’re using Eventbrite for promoting and managing our social media courses in Solihull.
Alternatives: CVent, Ticketleap, bespoke booking systems
If you need help getting any of these working effectively for you or to embed the “widgets” into your own website, then we can help. Of course, sometimes an off the shelf system doesn’t quite fit the bill, be it that you need something a bit different visually or technically. In which case give us a call, we have extensive experience of creating bespoke online booking systems and event micro sites, for example a bespoke system we developed for booking driving lessons for under 17’s, along with e-marketing and social media promotion.
So now you have it, all you need to make your next event run smoothly and successfully! Any tips to share of your own? Please post below.