MARKETING JOURNAL.
Three Solid Trends In Event Marketing for 2017
It’s been almost a year since my first trip to New Zealand to work with the Crankworx Rotorua team, last March. To celebrate, I’m highlighting a couple of my favourite trends in event marketing:
It’s been almost a year since my first trip to New Zealand. At the time I was working with the Crankworx Rotorua team. It was an absolute blast to work with such an agile, multi-talented communications team. Here are some growing event marketing trends that I expect will take centre stage in 2017:
- Facebook Live - Live streaming is a freight train. From Facebook to Twitter to Periscope to Instagram, nearly every social media channel is integrating a live-streaming option into the way we produce content. Initially for brand managers, Facebook Live caused near hair-loss and cold sweats. There was very little creative control over what was produced once a brand “went live”. Instinctually, we want to always put forward a clear, polished representation of a brand to it’s fans. But we soon discovered there was beauty in imperfection. Fans could relate to and are transfixed by this raw and un-edited format.
A great example from Crankworx Whistler:
- Gamification - Looking specifically at racing events, not all fans will be competing, some are pure spectators. To more holistically engage all event goers, gamifying the experience engages people on a whole new level. It is also a rad opportunity to capture demographic data or emails for remarketing campaigns. Mainstream sports have been doing this for years, so it's awesome to see a niche version for the bike community.
Have a look at the Fantasy league, Crankworx rolled out in France last year:
- Micro-Influencers - It’s wonderful to watch an event unfold through the social channels of various attendees, especially those with a decent sized social klout and eye for photography. These people immerse users into the feelings, sights and sounds of the event. It’s fantastic when a communication manager’s understands the value in supporting or building itineraries for a these Micro-Influencers. Talk about an amped-up version of word-of-mouth marketing!
I love this example from @haydenkortemoore during the 2016 World Ski and Snowboard Festival:
Social Media Tips for Organically Targeting Ski Resort Audiences
1. Appeal to your destination visitors: Schedule Posts and Tweets to go live in harmony with different time zones.
Articles and social media specialists often suggest blanketed days and times to distribute content across social channels, but resort community managers need to think in broader terms than local appeal. A portion of Whistler Blackcomb’s social media audience doesn’t reside in our province or even our time zone. Keeping these destination visitors in mind, I typically schedule Facebook posts and Tweets to go live according to when they are awake and getting back online. Be bold, test odd hours and days of the week. Who knows, you may discover 3am on Wednesday morning is your social media sweet spot.
Be mindful: If you schedule a post outside of working hours, don’t share content
that may require a quick response from your resort’s community manager.
2. Resorts have a variety of guests, stop trying to reach them all at once: Use the FacebookGeo Targeting feature to speak to specific audiences.
Step 1: Determine where your audience is from. In the Insights area of your resort’s
Facebook page, pay special attention to the breakdown of your audience by city,
country and language. Pick your top 3-4 audiences.
Step 2: Decide how you would like to target your message. Facebook will allow you to
target your post without spending money on ads. You can choose to target by gender,
relationship status, educational status, “interested in”, age, location or language.
Be mindful: Adding multiple targets will shrink your post’s reach.
Step 3: Go and create your “Status Update” in Facebook.
Once your post is ready to be scheduled or go live, pick the “Select Targeting” option. There you can choose from a
drop down menu of targeting options.
Be mindful: Remember, geo targeting is not an option when your post has already been scheduled or published.
Step 4: Experiment with your messaging to provoke higher engagement. Take those top
locations from your Facebook Insights research (plus languages if you’re extra savvy)
and segment your posts with messaging that speaks to each of these specific audiences.
A few “Targets” decoded:
Interested in – This will target your page’s fans that have specified in their
Facebook profile that they are either interested in Men or Women
Relationship Status – This option will allow you to target Facebook fans that have
specified whether they are Single, In a Relationship, Engaged or Married.
Location –When selecting this target click “All locations” to review a pop up
window with location options. Here you can target by Country, Region/State, or city.
3. Create a ripple effect of chatter about your new content: Create lists of social media influencers and bloggers to include in your Tweets.
Webisodes, blog posts, Instagram take-overs, and photo galleries are creating a rich
element of digital storytelling for resort marketing is this year. Make your marketing
budget stretch by targeting social media influencers that may be interested in sharing
your content. Think outside of standard endemic and mass media contacts. For
example, if your resort produces a video for children’s snow school, target family
bloggers who have large Twitter and/or Instagram followings.