Speaker 1: So you're in high gear promoting your event. Are you also promoting your sponsors, your exhibitors, and your vendors? And are they promoting that they're going to be at your event? I'm Cheryl Luck with Ginger Roots Media and this is... Hey guys, Lainey Sullivan with Events by Lainey. Okay, every event, pretty much every event I've ever been to has all kinds of exhibitors, vendors, and of course sponsors. Of course. So how can you use these people or companies or brands to promote your event? And do you just sell them a spot at your event and say thanks? Or should you be promoting them that they're going to be there? Well, typically most sponsorship and

Speaker 2: exhibitorship spots have some kind of social media selling requirement that you put in there that you're going to promote them as a sponsor because, hello, they just paid X amount of thousands of dollars to be an exhibitor or a sponsor at your event. So the right thing to do is to promote them. If you're not, then you need to change that today. Now vendors are a little bit different. You don't have to promote them. But what I will tell you is I worked with an event where the AV company, they were brilliant. They were out there taking pictures. I had a big team at the event and one of their, actually I think it was the owner of the company, actually if I go back and think about it, it was the owner of the company, you know, he's running around and they of course are a smaller company, but he's taking pictures and posting them all the entire time during the event. And he's tagging people and he's promoting the event during the event. It was amazing. Now that's not typical. That's not normal. It was a beautiful thing to see that as an event planner. I'm like, oh my god, this guy's amazing. He's completely promoting this event. So are we saying, dear vendors, please promote like this guy did. But it's really great though when you can promote your vendors because it gives them more visibility, gives them opportunity to work with other clients, you know, gives them opportunity to work

Speaker 1: with speakers that are at your event. They'll be more happy. They'll be more happy. A new normal phrase. They'll be more happy to work with you on future events. And if you refer someone, maybe they'll give you a discount next time. Right. But I can't imagine an event that is not promoting all of these people because, not only ahead of time, because all of these companies have brands, they have followers. So you're sending out a promotion for them saying, be sure to check these people out. I think it's going to come back tenfold because these are business people. They want the visibility. Oh yeah. These are not people that think they're better than everybody. They'll take everything they can and they will shove

Speaker 2: it back out. Well there's a few that think they're better than everybody, but those, we're not talking to you. So you can just hang up. They aren't watching

Speaker 1: anyway because they're too good. So here's the thing. When you're

Speaker 2: promoting all of your sponsors, your exhibitors, and your vendors, and your vendors, yes, promote them. I know I said it but I'm gonna say it again. Promote your vendors. So get their logos. Get their product information. Get their website links. Get their social media links. Go follow them. Go interact with them. Encourage them. Hold on. I know you want to say something. Encourage them to interact with you back. So make sure that they have your detailed information and your social media information. Okay Cheryl, she's like dying. Can you see this

Speaker 1: face over here? She's like waiting. Actually, go get the information. That should all be part of your digital assets that when they sign that contract to be part of it, they should be sending in their logos, their links, and all their information. So okay, I just, I wasn't specific. If you go back to the digital asset video, collect it all at the beginning so your social media team has it in place. Exactly. I didn't, I didn't want somebody to expect me to go out and

Speaker 2: hunt this crap down. No, you should be collecting it. When I say go get it, make sure that you're collecting it. So yes, I wasn't clear. Slap me. Okay.

Speaker 1: All right. That's a whole different video though. All right, so you guys need to be

Speaker 2: promoting them. And you can, you can incorporate their logos and their branding inside your event branding. You don't have to create a completely different set of branding for your sponsors and exhibitors, nor should you. So your branding, if you go back to digital assets, your branding should, you know, it hopefully plays along nicely with other logos and everything. But that's a whole nother conversation for a whole nother day that we're not gonna discuss. Make it work. Make it work. Regardless, make it work. But promote them. So decide what the schedule is. Decide what the contract is that you're going to promote. They don't have to promote your event. So the flip side of that is, you know, giving them an affiliate promotion, affiliate agreement, I'm sorry, affiliate link and agreement that they can promote your event and offer that to them and say, as you know, as we'd love to be in partnership with you, regardless of, you know, the sponsorship or in addition to the sponsorship, we'd love to give you an affiliate link. This is our agreement. This is what you will get. This is what we'd love to see, you know, let's make this a win win. And if you frame it in a way that it is a win win, right? You're going in partnership with the sponsorship. You're going in partnership with the exhibitor. Yes, they're paying you money to be at your event. They're paying you money for visibility. So you need to, I almost cursed, you need to absolutely promote the heck out of them.

Speaker 1: That's what they paid you for.

Speaker 2: That is exactly what they paid you for. So you need to make sure that they're represented beautifully online and beautifully at your event. And that's your event. That's not a conversation for a different video, but you need to represent them online, wholly from the moment they decide to become a sponsor to the post promotion, thanking them after the event is over. Thank you to our sponsors. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being present. Thank you for whatever. Same with the exhibitors. Thank them all promote the heck out of them, promote them through the event, promote them post event.

Speaker 1: But let's think about this. By the time you get your speakers, you have X amount of speakers. You're going to promote them in a way that they love. Then you've got your sponsors, promote them in a way they're going to love. Then you've got exhibitors, vendors, all of these people that are helping you have a great experience and your attendees have a wonderful time and have everything they ever wanted at your event. You're going to promote them and what all of these people are going to do in turn, most of them are going to be resharing those things and help build your event. So right there, when you start getting your speakers, your vendors, all of these people in line and you're sharing and they're resharing because, Hey, you just said nice things about them or, or displayed them nicely, or they want to draw more people in because then they're going to hand them that card and do whatever they do as a vendor or an exhibitor. So you've just got yourself a bunch of promotion to their followers, their fans, their, what's that word? Tribe. Trust me, vendors and exhibitors don't have tribes. Yes, they do. They have an audience, they have fans, they have brand advocates. They don't have tribes, but simply put, if you do this right, you have just gained a bunch of promotion to a bunch of people you wouldn't have reached. So think it through and do it right. Yeah. And you know, the last thing

Speaker 2: I think that I really want to emphasize on is when you're securing these contracts, let them know that you're going to be promoting them on social, not just, I'm not saying like, have them sign the contract and that tells them that you're going to promote them on social. Have a conversation that says, our team is going to promote you on social. Make sure that your team is going to promote them on social. Don't do something, don't commit to something that you are not actually going to do. And then say, we would love it. We'd love to, you know, create some engagement and in conversations in the online space prior to the event. So we want to let you know that we're going to be promoting you and we're going to be dropping you. We're going to be mentioning you. Is there somebody on your team that is handling your social media that will be paying attention to this? So that way we can, our two social media teams can be creating a conversation and a dialogue and generating more excitement and interest.

Speaker 1: Control each other. Right. So we've seen this with the huge brands where they are not even connected in any way. I mean, you can see two fast food restaurants we've seen, I won't mention them. Two fast food restaurants go back and forth on Twitter, kind of teasing each other. And in the long run, there were people that didn't like it. But for the most part, it gained both of them a lot of attention because they had fun with it and people enjoyed it and it got attention. And you can easily do this with an event and other people participating. It doesn't have to be rude, snarky. It can be some fun.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Make it fun. Make it exciting. Make it engaging. And that's it.

Speaker 1: So just make sure they're using your hashtag. Yeah. I mean, and that goes back. Like, we've, we've, if we have beat hashtags over your head, if you don't get

Speaker 2: it, too bad. Done. Exactly. If you are, you know, if you haven't gotten it at this point, I'm really sorry. You might not get it. All right. So I have no sympathy. Get on the list. We've got bonus material for you. Go to eventsbylainey.com slash knowledgebase and subscribe to our channel because you never

Speaker 1: know what might come up next that you're gonna want to know.