Promoting Live Events on Social: A 3-Phase Playbook (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hello to everyone who is tuning in to this community workshop and I am really excited about this one because we are going to be talking about promoting events and your show and your channel on social media. So if you are watching along live feel free to introduce yourself in the chat let us know where you're watching from and while you do that I'm just going to give a little bit of an explanation about today's workshop and what our workshops are all about. So if you haven't joined a Riverside workshop before, these are basically spot on the idea that we have a lot of knowledge to share with each other within the community. And I'm Kendall, the head of community. And so basically what I decided is that it would be such a great opportunity for people in this community to get to share real skills with each other. And we can all help each other become more successful in whatever we're doing, whether that's our shows, webinars, promoting events, all of that, there's so much knowledge that we could be sharing with each other. So that's where workshops really came from. But this specific workshop actually came from the idea that we are all, as creators, probably, if you're in this session today, posting a lot. And we are trying a million different ways to post, trying to get people to our events, trying to get people to like and subscribe to our shows, to go to our YouTube channel. We're asking a lot from people online. But maybe when we're creating all of that content, it's not really sticking like we wish it would. It's not really having the kind of impact that we want it to. So we called in Amy Watts here, who is with me. She's a B2B social strategist. And today, we're gonna be breaking down really what you can be doing so that you can be creating content that will actually stick, actually get people to do what you want them to do, to click that subscribe button, to sign up for your event, and really create actionable social media. Because while that's not just throwing a bunch of things at a wall, it's what you can be doing so that the work that you are doing is actually creating more impact. And so that's what the session is all about today. So in the chat, raise your hand or just say me, if you feel like you're just kind of posting a bunch of stuff to social media but you aren't seeing it move the way that you wish it would and if no one says me in this chat, I'm gonna feel pretty alone right now but I already see some thumbs up. Good, good. It's nice to hear that I'm not alone on this because yeah, we all spend a lot of time creating reels, creating social posts and it's frustrating to see when that doesn't really work as much as you'd like it to. So what can you really be doing to make things more actionable? And so that's where we brought in Amy today. She's a pro. So hello, Amy.

[00:02:52] Speaker 2: Hello. I'm so excited to be here. And this is a topic that I think about all the time, that I work on all the time with clients, but I've never really had the chance to really zoom into it in terms of content or doing a webinar like this.

[00:03:04] Speaker 1: So yeah, very excited. Very excited to see what questions come in

[00:03:07] Speaker 2: and really dig deep into this one. So I think it's something like you said that a lot of us can relate to.

[00:03:13] Speaker 1: Absolutely. Actually, when you had posted a few ideas of where we can go with, I actually ran it through the community saying, hey, everyone, what would you like to learn most about? And I was surprised that the strong winner was promoting events. Not surprised, because I know we all struggle with it. But I think that it's not a topic that we covered before. So it's really exciting to get to cover it today.

[00:03:34] Speaker 2: Perfect. Let's get started. So yes, like Kendall said, today we're going to be talking about how to promote live events social in a way that's actually interesting. But before we get into it I wanted to get everyone warmed up in the chat and just ask you what's your current favorite social platform and why? I think mine at the moment is definitely LinkedIn. I'm a big LinkedIn user. I think the vibes over there are just a little bit more forgiving, a bit more fun, less toxic, less arguing in the comments. So I'm really enjoying LinkedIn and also it's like I get messages from people for coffee chats all the time and it just feels like you can actually connect. It's like old school social media. So I'm loving LinkedIn at the moment. And I see a lot of love

[00:04:16] Speaker 1: for LinkedIn in the comments. A lot of love for LinkedIn, a lot of some love for threads to Instagram, but I am seeing a surprising number of LinkedIn. I thought somebody answered newsletter,

[00:04:26] Speaker 2: which I think is really interesting. Yeah, I have been liking subspec recently as well. I think that one's slowly climbing up the list for me. It's nice to kind of take some time to do some more long-form content consumption every now and then. Absolutely, yeah. Oh, threads. I haven't really gone into threads. I think I made an account when it first launched and then just never

[00:04:48] Speaker 1: never touched it again. But get back into it. Yes, absolutely. I've recently jumped back into threads. Yes, yes. Bring yourself there. It's a lot of fun, actually. Okay, perfect.

[00:04:58] Speaker 2: Okay so let's get into it a little bit about me. So I am a B2B social media strategist. I started out as an in-house marketer working at SaaS tech startups and if you've worked in a startup you know that the norm is to kind of do a little bit of everything. But social was always my favorite part of the job, the part that I enjoyed the most and now I'm lucky enough to help some really cool brands create really cool content and the focus is always on trying to do things outside of what you might expect in B2B, trying to do things that feel a bit more fun and a bit more filled with personality and a lot of that includes promoting things that are happening on other channels and using social as a platform to amplify other efforts which is why I'm very excited to get into today's topic which is about event promo. So what we're going to be covering today is why most events tend to fall a bit flat, what actually converts versus what usually doesn't, and then some simple ways to get more out of every event that you do with some real examples kind of dotted throughout that you can steal or maybe take inspiration from if you want to be more PC. So let's get us started thinking about this topic. I would love to know when it comes to promoting live by events on social, what do you guys tend to post? Like what is your kind of go-to format that you usually rely on? Feel free to let me know in the chat.

[00:06:33] Speaker 1: I'll jump in. I'll say that from what I've seen as people are answering in the chat, what I've seen is that a lot of our creators are using reels to promote their shows, but when it comes to events, you see more of those graphic posts, the like kind of the graphics that have the people talking. I mean, we posted one for this event. I think people usually tend to fall on that. But with this crowd, I was gonna say, yeah, there are a lot of clips here. IG Reels, Reels, yeah.

[00:07:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great to see a bit more variety here as well. I love that the people, it makes sense that the people who've come to the show today are already thinking of different ways to promote events. But yeah, like you said, usually, a lot of the time, it's kind of the static graphic. And that's exactly what I've got in the next slide. Usually it's just, you know, a graphic, a link, and just like, you know, nothing to the best that that turns into a sign up. Sorry, my puppy. My puppy is scratching at my desk. Give me one second. We're live, people.

[00:07:33] Speaker 1: We love live. We'll light it out with magic audio. That's what it's for.

[00:07:38] Speaker 2: I wish I could show the puppy, but he's huge.

[00:07:39] Speaker 1: Somebody said show the puppy in the comment.

[00:07:42] Speaker 2: I wish I could, but he's huge, and I cannot lift him up this high. Maybe later, he'll make an appearance. Um, but yes, usually a lot of brands will just rely on kind of, as we've all seen the same graphic a million times, um, you know, a title and maybe a little speaker image, a signup button, um, that feels just a little bit boring and doesn't really make that much of an impact. And most people will just post that once, hope for the best. And then one day later, you know, why, why did that not drive any signups? But there's actually so much more that can be done with social, there's so much potential there of ways that you can drive interest and also drive attendance because you're not just wanting to drive you know signups, you actually want people to be interested enough to show up on the day and not just forget that something was added to their calendar a month before. Never work with kids and animals, yes Tony, that's what they always say and it's true. So another question for you guys in the chat, what is it that makes you want to sign up to event, if you see a LinkedIn post or an ad, what is it that usually kind of pulls you in and grabs your attention, makes you think, ah, that's that's something that I want to attempt? I would love for you to let me know.

[00:08:53] Speaker 1: That's a really good question, actually. Because like, for me, I would say, the topic. Yeah, exactly what Charles said, the topic resonating engagement with like minded people.

[00:09:05] Speaker 2: Interesting speakers. Yeah. Presenters. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to learn something.

[00:09:15] Speaker 1: Cost and new topics. Because I realized recently that I didn't write free on the graphics that I'm doing. Because I'm like, oh, yeah, of course it's free. But then when I went to sign up for another event, I was like, oh, no, this one's charged. So, yeah, it's something that's actually already been a takeaway for me.

[00:09:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't thought to charge for a webinar before. Wow, maybe I should be charging.

[00:09:38] Speaker 1: And this will be a million dollars from all of you.

[00:09:42] Speaker 2: But yeah, these are all great reasons. And those reasons, that should be your content, right? So great promo for live events usually taps into what you want your audience to feel. Is it FOMO? You want them to think, wow, there are some really amazing speakers and really great guests there that I want to be there and see what they have to say and maybe ask the question, you know, you want them to think, I really can't miss this. There's intrigue, is it an interesting topic? Like you guys have said, is it a topic that's not usually spoken about something that feels a bit taboo, or that no, everyone's thinking, but no one really feels, you know, comfortable saying that's usually a topic that's going to get people interested and stop the scroll, or even belonging, you know, if it's a regular series of workshops like this one where it feels like there's a real sense of community there and you want people really want to join and be part of that and be there with peers and they're in the chat. You really want to tap into people's why. Why would someone be interested in coming to this event? And you know instead of telling them that you want them to sign up, give them a reason not to miss it. You know it really taps back into the idea that I always bang on about which is that social should be in an exchange. It's not a place for you to broadcast and talk from your soapbox. It should be giving something back to the audience and giving them a reason to be interested and that's very much what we need to do with events. So in thinking about event promo and what works and what doesn't over the years I have developed my kind of framework of what works. You know as an in-house marketer we were running regular events and I found that I was just kind of reinventing the wheel every time we had something to promote it was just making things a lot harder than it needed to be when it came to promotion. So I kind of developed this checklist almost of things that we know work and things that we can do each time and I've done the same thing for clients. I've developed a plan that framework already had and now I've tried to turn it into a kind of a more simple way to think about event promo at every stage of the campaign journey and hopefully this is useful for you too. So I like to think about it as pre-event, during the event and post-event and I have kind of tiers underneath each of these to try and make it really easy and really clear in my mind of what works, what has worked for me in the past, what's worked for other companies and making it really easy so that every time I have an event to promote I can go on this list and take yes I've done this I've done this and it just makes it so much easier to put this all together. So let's go first into the pre-event stage and this is obviously where most of the work happens it's where most of the buzz and the momentum is going to be created. It's also where a lot of brands either start too late or they just don't really do enough you You know, they post one graphic or maybe two graphics, two posts, and I think that's enough. But there's so much more that could be done at this stage, especially. So first one is something I never see people do, which is teasers. You know, I think a coming soon moment is something that gives people something to look forward to. It shows that you're excited about what you're doing. And I don't know if any of you follow Pretty Little Marketer or Sophie Miller. She does a great job of this, and I know that she's maybe not in the B2B space, but I think B2B should be taking inspiration from what everyone else is doing because they're the ones driving real interest and real engagement. So, you know.

[00:13:25] Speaker 1: We actually just had an event with them, so if you go to riverside.com slash webinars, you can actually see the Pretty Low Marketers event that they did about positioning yourself as a brand.

[00:13:35] Speaker 2: Amazing, PLM are great, I love them. But yeah, imagine if you have like an event you're doing. You've got like a really great speaker and someone that you think that your audience would immediately recognize and be really excited about. Tease it. Have like a blurred image of them or get people to guess in the comments. You know, make it an event. If you show that you're excited about something, other people are more likely to be excited about something. I think that's something that we really lack in B2B social sometimes. It's like a little bit of joy and whimsy. So I would love to see some brands kind of bringing this into their event right now. And then next one is something that everyone does, but maybe not everyone does in the most impactful way. So the announcement, you know, this is your biggest organic moment, essentially of this promotional campaign. So treat it like one, instead of just doing the same graphic, the same layout every time, have a think about, like we said, what's the one thing that your audience will get out of showing up and just lead with that. Slate is an amazing example of a brand doing really cool things with live events, especially with their promotion. I always come back to them for examples because I think they do such a good job and if you know anything about Slate you'll know that their social team is like a powerhouse of marketers and content creators. Each person on that team has their own audience and their own following that would show up to see them talk about anything. So that's what they lean into with the promotion, you know, like, this is a, this is an ask me anything that they did, where they were inviting their audience to come and just have like a really casual chill session asking questions to the site team. And so they kind of leaned into the more humor humorous casual side of things with this funny image. And they put their people front and center because they know that's what's going to drive them to signups. They've made it super obvious that this is casual, and this is gonna be fun. And no, it's not AI, it's just badly done Photoshop, which makes it more fun and more whimsical, love it. But even if you have like maybe a less casual or less fun brand identity on social, you can still lean into what's kind of the main draw of your event, right? If it's the the person that you're talking to, make sure they're front and center. If it's maybe not the person but the brand that they work for, make sure that that's really clear in the visuals. If it's a really, you know, controversial or really hot topic, make sure that's super clear, just making sure that you're really leading with that and have a bit of fun with how you present it as well if you can. Next one is to give people a bit of a sneak peek, you know, asking someone to take maybe an hour out of their working day is a big ask and so if you want someone to actually turn up and to actually attend and be present, you need to let them know what to expect and show them that it's going to be actually worth their time. Content2 is a great kind of smaller brand to follow on LinkedIn if you're looking for more recommendations of maybe not the huge brands all the time because I know that they tend to feature quite heavily. They're an amazing startup brand to follow and they create these carousels each time just giving a quick idea of what someone can expect. So this was a webinar they did with Pinterest and they created this carousel kind of going through and showing what's on the agenda, who is going to be speaking. And I think this is just a great example to, you know, give someone even more reason not to miss it. Keep it fresh in people's minds and make sure that you know, they know what they're signing up for, because there's nothing worse than showing up to a webinar during your lunch break, and realizing, oh, this isn't what I expected at all, or turning up at a sales pitch, like I think we've all been there. No one wants So do what you can to make it really clear what value they're going to get from this The next one is to make sure that you're utilizing all the channels that you have available to you You probably have more of them than you think. I think most of us Maybe just focus on the brand page whereas you actually have the host, whoever's hosting it They probably have a LinkedIn profile, your speaker or guest speakers you if you have an employee advocacy program lean on that see if your employees can start posting and helping you promote. You know each of these profiles has an audience of their own and if you're not activating them each time then that's a big missed opportunity and something else you can do to make sure that you know all of these different profiles get activated is to make it as easy as possible remove any of the friction so instead of asking the speaker to create their own post, put together a graphic for them, suggest a caption and just make it really easy for them to talk about and share that they're part of this and to promote it. Seems like a given but you know it's really important that a lot of people skip this part or overlook it so definitely think about all of the different people and different profiles that could be good for writing your event. The next one is about you know keeping up that momentum, you want to space out your content and run up to the big day and also you want to try and make sure that you're giving people something new every time. I see a lot of people just kind of repeating the same graphic, reposting it a lot of the time, but if it didn't work the first time, it's not going to convince someone the second time. You need to try something else, give people some different messages and different imagery to cling on to. And also have some fun. I think maybe the theme of this webinar is whimsy, but you know there are so many creative ways to bring attention to your live events and also continue driving signups and they don't always have to be the kind of standard traditional posts that you imagine. Like this is a great example from Semrush who this is for yes this is for their spotlight kind of in-person conference but this can easily be applied to a live event. You know this is like a more evergreen, relatable, shareable graphic but they've tied it into what people can gain from coming to event. So I think this is a great example of how you can do lots of different creative posts but still bring it back to your event and bring back to that promotion. You could also do a carousel digging into the topic a little bit or presenting a debate that's happening and then in the final slide say we're actually doing an event on this you should join. You know it's another way to grab attention and to provide value but you're still promoting the event that you've got coming up. So next stage is the during part and this one is tricky because you're busy actually running the event half the time but a little bit of planning ahead means that you can still show up in the feed while it's happening or at least make sure that you're capturing content at the time that it's happening to you. So the first way is to go live in the moment so I never see people do this I it's such a missed opportunity. If you have someone extra on the team who isn't actually running the event, grab a quick screenshot of what's happening in the webinar, pull a quote from the session, a behind-the-scenes moment of getting ready, and share it during the event. It reminds people what they're missing. It might remind people, oh damn, I signed up for that and I forgot to join, and they'll go and join. Or it makes people think, oh damn, I missed it. I'll make sure to go and grab the recording. I think sometimes it's just nice to show a bit more of the the behind the scenes and, you know, remind people of what's happening. I think I never see this being done, but I think it would be really fun. And then the next one is to capture as you go. So I think sometimes we rely just on the recording on the transcript after forgetting that there's so much that happens during the event that can spark ideas for great content. So if someone says something really interesting, note down the time, you know, how far into this webinar are we? because sometimes, you know, there's great tools like Riverside that helps you create clips and things, but you might miss one that you think, Oh, that would have been really good. Not every tool is going to pick it up. So note down something, Oh, that was an interesting moment. Or, you know, screenshot, if there's like things happening in the chat that are really funny or entertaining or unexpected screenshot, note them down. Um, the questions that come up in the QA, it all makes for really good content. So if you have capacity. Oh, go for it.

[00:21:49] Speaker 1: Jump in, yeah, and I'm just gonna give two examples of what I like to do. So first of all, the live chat, as soon as I finish recording a live session, I download the live chat, just because there's so many things about people, what are people getting excited about? What are people sharing with each other that you might miss while you're doing the session, but it's so great to get to see those conversations later, whether that's for marketing insights, to send to the product team, but for you, it's also, maybe you could spark another episode idea, maybe another event idea. Another is that when you do, this is my favorite little trick, when you do have one of those moments where you're like, ooh, definitely a great clip for social, if you're using Riverside, we use the M button on your keyboard, it's my favorite thing, it creates a marker on your editor timeline so that you can actually find that moment really quickly. So as I'm going through, I'm just like tapping that M key the whole time. So just, I had to, I had to, I just didn't put it in my tool. No, I love it. Expert tips.

[00:22:51] Speaker 2: No, I love it. And no, that's I love that you can download the chat. That's so useful, because I always find that so annoying. Usually when I'm like, I remember someone has said something really funny in the chat, but I was too busy, you know, trying to keep up with everything that I forgot about it. So

[00:23:06] Speaker 1: that's great. Even taking that quote, like, Oh, my gosh, I learned so much from this as a chat. You could turn that into a graphic post for social and be like, if you want to catch the replay, it's here. Like, there's so much that you could be doing. And also, usually, like, if I'm using one of those, I'll reach out to the person that left it. And usually, because you don't want to just, like, use their quote and their name without asking, but usually they're very game and very excited to be a part of it.

[00:23:30] Speaker 2: No, everything is content, as we always say. So grab as much as you can, and you can make something out of it. Yeah, moving on to the last stage, which is post-event content. And this is the bit that a lot of brands skip entirely, which is such a shame, because you think the event's done, promo stops, we've got to move on to the next thing, but your content has a lot more life in it than you think. And it's not just about recapping what was covered in the event, but also thinking about how can we extend the shelf life of this content too and repurpose it in different ways. So obviously the most obvious way is to share the recap. Slate is here again. I love Slate. What can I say? They're a great example. They did this really fun recap of all of the events that they did in April. Instead of it just being a typical, oh, this is what we did, they took some quotes out of context and made this really funny carousel, which is another example of something fun and whimsical that you can do with your post-event content. But even just like a standard highlight carousel, carousel, here's what we covered, here are the questions that came up, here are some of our favorite comments in the chat. You can really do a lot with a recap carousel or a recap video with clips or even just a single text post but just make sure that you're signposting to that replay and making sure people know that just because they missed out on the day doesn't mean they can't be part of the fun. And then next, repurposing the good stuff. So I think maybe people think that if they've already done a recap carousel they can't then go ahead and continue to use whatever came up but those moments, the funny comments or the great quotes during the webinar, they can be repurposed again and again because it's relatable and it's relevant to your audience and if it landed in the chat it's probably going to land on social. And yes you can use clips from the webinars, those always perform really well. But you don't just have to use clips, you can use them in different ways and see what lands for your audience. I really like this style of quotes where you have like the screenshots of people talking and then the quote kind of written over the screen. It's maybe a more shareable way to share these kind of things. But there's loads of stuff, you can create parasails digging deeper into one of the topics that's covered, you can do so many things to repurpose what you've done. An article, a newsletter, anything what's covered in your webinar has such a long shelf life if you actually think about how you can extend it. Next one, this is what kind of what Kendall mentioned is to kind of keep that conversation going. If there's like an interesting question that came up in the Q&A that can make great standalone content or it can even become the topic of your next webinar and make sure you use that in the promo make it very clear that you know this is a question we got in the previous one this isn't like something from our community that we're answering what you wanted to hear and I think that's part of what creates that sense of community on social and that's what keeps people coming back because they're included in the narrative which I think makes such a difference. And then finally we have encouraging attendee content. So it doesn't always happen, but if you're lucky enough to have this happen and someone recaps your event or what happened on social, that's really amazing reach, like that's reach you can't buy, it's organic and it's much more likely to land. So when that happens, share it, engage with it, make people feel special, make people feel good, make sure you like show that you really appreciate that that they've done it, and other people will follow. People love to be appreciated by brands and be shown love, so do what you can to really encourage attendees to create content off the back of what you're sharing live events.

[00:27:27] Speaker 1: On that note, a prize, some swag, goes to anyone who posts, and we'll pick one. I'm kidding.

[00:27:34] Speaker 2: That's a great idea, no, but it's true. Yes.

[00:27:37] Speaker 1: Any event that you can add, why not?

[00:27:40] Speaker 2: That's a great idea.

[00:27:41] Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll send you a shirt if we will draw out of a hat of everyone who who posts about the event. Well, we'll we'll pick a few of you and send you a shirt.

[00:27:49] Speaker 2: Love that. Yeah, that's everything I have in the slides. But I've seen a few questions popped up in the chat. And yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions or dig a bit deeper into anything that I've mentioned throughout these slides.

[00:28:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, feel free to drop your questions in the chat. But one One thing that I really want to zero in on is something that I thought was really interesting. We talk about it all the time at Riverside that a lot of people have these events and it's beginning and ending in the hour long that the event happens. But there's so much that you could be doing after the event's wrapped up. Not even just with posts. You can take your event, run the transcript through ChatGPT or Claude or even just run transcript by yourself and say, okay, these are the top insights, send that in a newsletter. Maybe you put that up as a blog. Maybe you put the top five insights that you learned as a carousel post. You could even make an entire month's worth of content out of just one webinar, just like you can with your podcast episodes, by the way. So if you're just having your session and it ends and then you're letting that content kind of lie, you're leaving a lot on the cutting room floor. So definitely wanted to just put that out there. And then I want to, we have a few great questions in the chat. So Mark Gates had asked off the bat, I was told LinkedIn is for businesses only, not personal. You disagree?

[00:29:24] Speaker 2: I definitely disagree. Sorry, my headphones have just died. Can you still hear me? Okay.

[00:29:29] Speaker 1: Yes.

[00:29:30] Speaker 2: Yes. Okay, good. No, LinkedIn is popping for personal pages right now. personal pages are performing better than company pages. And I think now, if you're interested in starting to post on LinkedIn, now is like the perfect time. I think something like only 3% of people who use the platform are actually posting there. And so that's a lot of opportunity to take up. There's a lot of space to fill, a lot of niches to discover and create. And we're also finding that founder pages and employee pages are doing a much better job of really expanding reach and getting people interested and building that trust. And it's becoming a really solid part of LinkedIn strategy is to have real people sharing about your brand and initially to the company page. So if you're not looking into that or leaning into it, I definitely would change my exits.

[00:30:20] Speaker 1: I mean, I've actually spoken a lot about this with creators about social media was not made for brands. You remember when Facebook was first introduced, they didn't want ads or brands in it at all in the beginning And that's because personalities, people, really will shine through. So yeah, a lot of the time actually people will perform much better than brands and businesses on social media. So definitely something to keep in mind. Then somebody had written, Adrienne wrote, I worry about diluting my own brand when promoting for my clients. So is that, Adrienne, let us know, Is that like you saying that if you're promoting events that you're doing for other clients, you don't want to dilute your brand? Like, tell us a little bit more what you mean by that. We'd love to get to that one. So we had this question, I believe, twice. One is from Fiona. After webinar, what's the ideal timeframe for marketers to repurpose the content? Immediately after, within a week, or something else?

[00:31:27] Speaker 2: I find as soon as you can. Like, you don't want to lose that momentum. And especially if, like, there's a lot of people that maybe weren't able to make it to the live event. It doesn't have to be kind of a super polished like video recap of everything the next day, because that's not always realistic, but like a quick recap carousel or some of our favorite questions in the chat from yesterday's webinar. You know, anything you can share like right off the bat, I think, you know, it's going to help and it's going to keep that momentum going for you.

[00:31:57] Speaker 1: Absolutely. We have, does it make sense to pre-promote a closed slash private event where you just have a guest, where you just have guests but really nice speakers?

[00:32:10] Speaker 2: Pre-promote a closed, oh, the question's gone. Could you repeat that one?

[00:32:14] Speaker 1: Oh, there we go. Does it make sense to pre-promote a closed private event? Like, I think, yeah, that's a great, that's a, that's a great thing to promote. You want people to be able to sign up, whether that's private or whether that's public.

[00:32:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And also, I think having that sense of promo is never a bad thing, like showing, maybe people didn't manage to sign up to like this event, or they didn't get an invite, but they see, wow, that sounds really cool. Maybe for the next one, they want to get an invite, or they'll try harder to get the next one, or they'll, you know, want to be part of that community. And also, it's like still giving you visibility of the kind of the cool conversations that you're facilitating the people that you're working with, I think it's still worth sharing to your wide audience because it's still visibility for your brand, I would say.

[00:32:58] Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean, and also exclusivity sells in a way like we, I remember at an old job that I had had, we found that if you make the button to sign up RSVP, we got lower signups than if you make the button save your spot or save your seat, because people want to feel like they're kind of saving a seat rather than just everyone's invited. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We have from Nathan, is it bad to post the same content across all platforms you're on?

[00:33:25] Speaker 2: I don't think so. I know this is like a hot topic and a lot of people say that it's a bad thing. I don't think so. If you think it's still going to be relevant to your audience that you have there, why not? Obviously, if you're just kind of blanket posting the same thing everywhere without really considering it, then maybe that might not be performing super well. But as long as you're making sure that the individual content is kind of optimized for that platform, and then also optimize for the people that you're speaking to there and what they're looking for on that platform, then I think why not? Even just like a simple adjustment to the hook or to the format, you can still repurpose the same message and the same idea on different platforms. I wouldn't shy away from, you know, posting the same thing on different platforms. It's just about making a few tiny tweaks if necessary.

[00:34:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, also I know that some platforms will prioritize if you make those tweaks on their platforms. So like for Instagram, if you are posting a graphic, but then you maybe put some text from Instagram on top of it, they want you, these platforms want you to be using their editing tools, want you to be using their overlays, whatever that is. So I think it helps, I don't have any scientific proof. But actually, speaking of that, Jess had written, it seems like, there we go, it seems like Like some platforms deprioritize posts with links that takes users off the platform. I've heard this too. I've been posting a short clip and then the full episode in the comments is that best practice. So yes, big hot topic, links, to include them, to not, to put them in the comment, to say right here and I'll DM you. What do you recommend?

[00:35:03] Speaker 2: I've been having this conversation ever since I started on social, it's always a hot topic. I actually read recently someone from LinkedIn saying that they don't de-prioritize posts with links in them in the caption, whether that's true or not, I don't know, can we believe

[00:35:19] Speaker 1: what LinkedIn say?

[00:35:20] Speaker 2: But honestly, I would prioritize accessibility and ease of signing up over that maybe X percent amount of actual reach that you might get. I think it's more important that the people that see it are able to find the link because you know, sometimes if you leave the link in the comments, LinkedIn will hide it, unless you put the most recent, you have to go through all the way back to the bottom, you might not be able to find it, and then you might lose a sign up. And I think that's more detrimental than the extra percent reach that you might get from not including that link. So I'm to link in caption, but I know that not everyone will agree.

[00:35:54] Speaker 1: No, it's smart, because you're right that they do bury some of the comments. So I'm with you on that, that people just need to be able to find that link. I've tried, sometimes it'll be, like I'll say, hey, write a comment here and I'll send you the link. But then lately, I've found with LinkedIn and also with Facebook that they've started to limit messages. I think that it's like a battle against spam. Yeah, definitely is a battle against spam, but it's like, it's harder to really get your link out there because that's what I used to do and I loved it. But now, that's not so easy. We have from Kimberly, thoughts on sharing your content to your business page first and then reposting or just going straight to your own page? I like to, I say because like personal pages perform better, I like when brands repost their employees posting about it, but let me know what you think.

[00:36:48] Speaker 2: I would say exactly the same thing. Twins. I, yes. I mean, I would post them at the same time. You know, try and really make it a moment, build that momentum, try and get everyone posting on the same day with the announcement at least. And yeah, I would repost the personal page to the business page. I see, I did post about this today on LinkedIn, actually. I see the business page as kind of like the landing page, like the central hub of the brand on LinkedIn, whereas the personal pages are kind of more optimized for like really spreading that reach a bit wider. So, you know, if someone lands on the company page and they see, you know, posts from people, posts from the brand, it makes it feel like more of like a, you know, a lived in, active, dynamic brand. that's just my opinion. So yeah, I would post it on both at the same time, you know, if it's on the personal page and you're hosting, lean into that, add that personal kind of angle to the post. Yeah, do both, why not?

[00:37:46] Speaker 1: We also have, Christine had asked, this is a long one, so I'll read the whole thing on the side. For our podcast, we're trying to get more feedback from listeners, people watching on YouTube. On On every show, we ask people to give their feedback. We do posts and polls asking people to give thoughts on topics, and we don't get a lot of social media participation. Are there any tips that you would give to promote audience participation on social media?

[00:38:11] Speaker 2: Yeah. It would be interesting to know which platforms you're looking to get this participation on. On YouTube, it's always a bit harder, I find, to get people commenting unless there's already comments in the comment section people will kind of avoid it. But if it's on LinkedIn I think polls can be great or if you're on LinkedIn kind of like we said earlier sharing some screenshots of previous messages as the content can like encourage a bit more conversation. On X and on Instagram she had written. X and Instagram. Okay X I personally don't use so I can't speak too much to X but Instagram, I know Instagram do polls. Instagram stories are great for collecting feedback because it feels a little bit more anonymous. I think sometimes the hardest part with getting people to start leaving comments is that it feels a bit intimidating if you've got like an empty comment section in front of you, whereas stories you can have people like anonymously respond or

[00:39:08] Speaker 1: vote in a poll. One thing that I just wanted to say from this is that I know that they're like one of the things you were saying about like the intimidation of going into an empty chat, that. If you – this is going to sound lame, but it works. If you have people that – your friends or your family, ask them to just leave one comment on something to just weigh in and be like, oh, I loved the part where you talked about this. It really helps other people jump in. No one – it's like going to an event, like a meetup. Nobody wants to be the first person to introduce themselves. But once they do that, it's much easier. So it's a little bit of a cheat. But having somebody come in and just give their answer is is really I found very, very helpful.

[00:39:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, I did the same thing with employees, like as part of your employee advocacy program, not just like encouraging them to post, but get them to comment on your post, get them to start the conversation, get the ball rolling. Because we see other people engaging and commenting are much more likely to want to like, join in. So yeah, friends, family, employees, whoever you can manipulate into starting a conversation.

[00:40:14] Speaker 1: Absolutely. So what is the optimal lead time for initiating event promotion efforts? When would you start promoting an event?

[00:40:24] Speaker 2: Ooh, I guess it depends a lot of the time. I know that's a really annoying answer. I always try and give myself at least two weeks, like any less than that, and you're just not really gonna have enough time to build up or enough time to try different messages different posts and different content types to get those signups that you want. I think, you know, often it depends a lot of the time on is it paid or is it free? Is it like an all-day online conference you're doing or is it just like one off session or community workshop? You know, how many people are you coordinating? Have you got like a full panel of people or is it just kind of like a one-on-one session like we're doing today? If it's a full panel of people and you're trying to to get them to post about it as well, that's not a lot of time if you've just got like a week or two weeks of running time to get them all posting and sharing that they're commenting. So I think think about, you know, all the things that you want to be able to say before the event, how much time can you realistically do that in? Because you also don't want to be posting just about the event for like two weeks straight. So make sure you can space things out evenly as well, like every few days instead of every day.

[00:41:36] Speaker 1: That was actually the next question, which is, what is your recommended timing when you're spacing out teaser posts?

[00:41:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we don't want to, like, annoy people, you don't want to get sick of the same topic, especially if it's not super relevant to them, right, you know, not everyone's going to be interested in every topic that you cover. So I'd say at least a couple of days between each other, trying to make sure that you're not like kind of shoving it down people's throats, and then they might just kind of together. But then at the same time, don't leave too much space in between them all. So I think we forget that not everyone sees everything that you post. So, you know, if you just do one post before the event, someone might have missed it completely and not even realize that that was happening. So make sure that you're showing up regularly enough about the event. But all day, every day, it might just get a little bit too much.

[00:42:26] Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Absolutely. So speaking of kind of this timing, Megan and asked with live events on LinkedIn, one, pre-posting, how to engage with LinkedIn events, is that outside of people that were invited or attending? And then two, how long should LinkedIn events stay active and online after the event?

[00:42:48] Speaker 2: Ooh, I've done loads of experience with live events. I've done a few here and there. I think in terms of pre-posting, was it how to get people to engage with the event page was the question.

[00:43:00] Speaker 1: without, yeah, Megan, let us know, because it says pre-posting, how to engage with LinkedIn events that is outside of people that were invited or attending. Let us know what you mean by that. I'll go on to the next question just while we get some more explanation here. Mike had asked, we have an audience with a broad age demographic, ages 20s to 70s. Have you found an efficient way to promote? Where Gen X is on TikTok, millennials are on Instagram, Boomers on Facebook, and there's LinkedIn, X, Substack, Blue Sky, et cetera, what are your recommendations?

[00:43:36] Speaker 2: Well, it's a very wide age bracket, I guess. I would love to know, are you just focusing on age bracket, or is there like a specific, you know, niche that you're focusing on, what's the thing that's tying all these people together? I think when it comes to trying to generalize with the platforms, like, it's very easy to think, Oh, you're just found to Gen Z on TikTok and there's just these people on it. But sometimes I think that's oversimplifying things. And there's like a lot of change when it comes to the industry that you're in and where people are going for certain topics and information. So I would really if you want to fully understand where to find your audience, no one can give you a general answer. You really need to kind of dig into the analytics that you have on your platform and see, you know, what is the breakdown of who's following me or what is the breakdown of people who are engaging with this kind of content that I want to post. I think it's much more important to kind of focus on that than trying to find someone who will be like, yes, everyone on this platform wants this because no one can say that for your specific brand, your specific niche. So really spend time thinking about not just the age range of like who you're talking to, but also their interests. What are they coming to that platform for? You know, I think a lot of people, you might say, oh, it's just people over 30 on LinkedIn. You know, LinkedIn is also about people who are coming there to advance their careers, to learn more about like how to do their job, to connect with peers and professionals, to find a job. You know, it's, there's different motivations that you'll have for each platform. Like maybe on TikTok, it's more about kind of lifestyle. It's more about relatability. It's about, you know, being entertained. So think also about what your audience is looking for on those platforms and not just kind of like the generic age and groups that they might be in.

[00:45:28] Speaker 1: Are there, speaking of channels, Whitney asks, are there any paid channels that you think are worth the money?

[00:45:33] Speaker 2: I'm an organic girly. I think whenever I've tried to do paid promotion, maybe you can speak more to this, Kendall, because I know that Riverside do paid promotions sometimes. I found that LinkedIn just never really worked to be honest. Like we would put so much money into that, trying to get sign-ups and just never really saw much reward. We found there was a lot more benefit from doing more of the cross-channel posting, like employees, hosts, speakers, everything like that. We found that we got a lot more out of really putting all of our efforts into getting those posts or even paying some influencers or creators if they were coming along to the event to get them to promote it as well. Our money was best placed there than ads. But yeah, it'd be interesting to know if other people have had different experiences with paid ads.

[00:46:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was actually going to say that, I mean, I'm on the organic team within Riverside, so I don't have all of the insights on paid and boosting and all of that. What I will say is that I think that we are standing at a point where we have our own audiences. So if you don't have an audience, I do think that there are some great, I do think that there are some really great tools that you can use on Meta and on LinkedIn to be able to target different people. So I would say, I mean, even putting a little bit of money behind an Instagram, Facebook ad type of thing, boosting that post, I think could help if you're starting from not having a large audience or that your guest doesn't have a large audience, because you want it to get in front of new people. So there's Nathan, I've said, thoughts on paid meta ads. So yeah, I think, I mean, I haven't done myself for my own content, a paid meta ad, but I do know that there's so much targeting that you could do, you could write exactly who you're kind of aiming for. So I do think that that could be an interesting channel for trying to grow your audience, get in front of people that aren't exactly following you. LinkedIn is interesting because I love how their algorithm like brings up people that I don't follow and will show people commenting on different posts and I think that like discovery is just really, really good on LinkedIn. So yeah, I mean, I would, if you're trying to invest in that promotion, I would try out seeing if, like putting a little bit of money behind Facebook and Instagram kind of meta posting and targeting and seeing if that will help you. And that's if you're having trouble kind of finding your people, it'll help you find them. So now we have a few more questions. So here's one. One of the challenges is that I do six plus podcast episodes a month and often just as many webcasts. I worry about flooding my feed all of the time. That I will say, and Amy, you could jump into here, that's what a content calendar is for. We added one just now to Riverside. I'm kidding. But that is what a content planner is for. So being able to say, okay, I'll do two posts a week and this, like here and here, they're going to be about the webinar. Here and here, they're going to be wrapping up the podcast. And like a thing to do for that is that people, you're right, they don't want to follow just like a promotional page. Instead, like why can't you promote your event by talking about cool insights from your last event? Like make sure, and so when you're talking about flooding the zone, you can't really, I don't think you could flood the zone with like too many insightful, impactful posts. If you're writing every day, tune into my next episode here, come to my event here. that is too much. But if you're like turning those events into insights, I think you have a lot more room. And then I also just want to say, Amy, thank you so much for joining and sharing all of this. I'm really excited. There are a lot of things that I even want to start doing in Riverside for events. So really cool to be able to hear all of the cool things that you could be doing with events and also hear how you could be using Riverside and like kind of extending your events after you've recorded them. so creating social posts out of your transcripts, out of your chats, really cool to hear about all of that. Thank you all so much to everyone who tuned in live, to everyone who's watching afterwards. Our next community, oh, yay, for everyone who stayed late, we've got the puppy, by popular demand, we've got the puppy.

[00:50:00] Speaker 2: I'll have to make up for it sometime.

[00:50:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there, that's, you know, if it's gonna be quiet on your mic, you might as well just like take advantage of that and lift up a dog, you know? I don't have one in my studio with me, but for next time, our next workshop is actually going to be about how your brand can leverage podcasting as a way to really drive business to your brand. So if you're a coach, if you're using podcasting as an extension of your business, definitely tune into that one. I'll be sending a link out, as well as the replay. But to all of you who tuned in live, and all of you who are watching, and Amy, thank you so, so much for tuning in. I hope you learned a lot from the session, And Amy, stick with me, because we'll do a little recap in the backstage. So, thank you all. Have a great rest of your day, and see you at the next session. Can't wait to see what you create after all these insights and learnings here. Thank you. Bye everyone.