Marketing for Meeting Planners – Using Social Media
Regardless of the career specialty you choose as a meeting planner, one thing is certain: the Internet can be your best friend when it comes to marketing your meeting planning business. More specifically, social media can often be the tipping point from a publicized meeting to a well-publicized event. Here are some ideas to consider to make social media work for you.
Using Your Own Professional Page
If you do not have a professional social media page already at Linkdin, Facebook or Twitter, you need to create one–yesterday! Your friends lists will become your all-important contact list for bulletins about upcoming events. Let’s say you are scheduling a convention for administrative professionals, and almost all your friends have such employees. Once you send out a bulletin about the event, you may get some sign up's from your friend list. You will help boost your attendance just from one or two notices sent globally–and all for free.
However, this highlights the importance of being picky when you invite friends. Sure, it’s polite to try and get your list started with your next door neighbor’s two-person home based business, but if you want important and highly visible clients, choose people you want to do business with now. And send out as many invitations as you can to the group you identify.
Using Events Posting
You can create events in social media sites and announce those, along with details, to your friends list through invitations (lots of people don’t bother reading bulletins but they are more likely to read an invitation). If you are planning for a company that also has a page and an extensive contact list, they can pass on your event invitation to others. In this way you have created a contact list that branches out extensively as it’s passed on.
Creating a Page for the Event
Another way to publicize your events is creating its own page. This is most effective for events that will repeat at least annually. Invite an appropriate list of friends as usual, and ask them in turn to refer the page to others who may want to attend the meeting.
Your page can also become a forum for suggestions on how to make the event better in the future. Ask for people to post comments to you and then read them. Respond and interact with your clientele.
Eventually you will see other ways to use social media to your benefit. Every day there are more sites springing up where you can build a page for free. Look for them and use them to their utmost in your career as a meeting planner.
