Publishing blogs, podcasts and social media content around an event can ramp up engagement among your attendees — and give FOMO to those who aren’t attending.
This week, Sifted gathered some tips from our events and editorial team on how companies can create exceptional content before, during and after an event.
Write a guide to your event — before it happens
Prior to an event kicking off, publish an article giving your attendees a taste of what's to come. Include:
- Preparations attendees should make (whether it’s downloading the event app, adding things to their schedule or setting up meetings).
- Transport options to get to the venue and details of the event layout and catering on site.
- Some of the most exciting panels or interviews taking place and the most important (or star-studded) speakers who will be attending.
Make use of social media
Use Twitter or Instagram to live-document a day at an event. You could highlight important facts and figures presented by speakers, and share the best quotes they made on stage. Have a hashtag that makes it easy to find all user generated content. Make the hashtag visible across the event and remind attendees at regular intervals to use it.
Record a reel
Reels aren’t just a great way to capture your summer holiday — the format also works well to capture the feeling of an event. You can film everything from the journey you take with your team to the event to chats with speakers about the topics of the day. It’s a great way to bring personality to your brand — you can share on LinkedIn, Instagram or Tiktok. Here's an example of a summary produced by Silvr at our recent event in Berlin.
Take notes at the event
Have someone listen to panels or interviews so they can take detailed notes. Include key points and takeaways made by panellists, spicy quotes or extracts of conversation or thoughts or questions you had while listening. You can then use these as guidance for an article or post.
Create a wrap-up article
Write a quick intro summarising what the event was, what your team was doing there (if it wasn’t an event you organised) and general impressions about the event. Then, write five key headings based on the notes you made and a few sentences underneath explaining the points you heard at panels, or snippets of conversations you had with fellow attendees. Here's an example of one we did recently.
Make a post-event Q&A
If you use a Q&A platform at your event, like Sli.do — where attendees can submit questions to panellists live — email the questions that didn’t get answered to your speakers. Get them to respond either in written form or via video. Compile the responses together into a blog post or video for your company website — your attendees who didn’t get their questions answered will be happy.
On the subject of...
Repurposing event content. There are myriad ways of doing this: From publishing live videos throughout an event to inviting your speakers to record a podcast afterwards to chat about key takeaways from their panel.
Social media tips and tricks. Hootsuite has a useful guide on creating content before, during and after your event on socials to engage your audience — and encourage them to come back next time.
A guide to B2B event content. Events are a great way for B2B startups to promote their brand and interact with potential customers — but success relies on having an effective content strategy.