Many B2B companies are still way behind the curve on their social media strategies and many of their team members are still not incorporating social selling tactics in their daily routines.

These are some of the key thoughts on how we view, execute ourselves and teach social media strategies to our clients.

This post is split in 6 areas: 

• 12 Tips on Successful LinkedIn Posting Strategy
• Demystifying Digital Interaction
• How do you foster commentary on LinkedIn
• Hacks to Gain More Visibility
• LinkedIn KPIs and Metrics
• Conclusion

This is a post that will help demystify some of the questions on the way people post on LinkedIn and the impact this will have on their exposure to their connections and potential connections.

11 Tips on Successful Posting Strategy

1. Post every day or at least 3 times a week

2. Use a striking headline- same principles of SEO work

3. Use long form and share as much as you can within the post

4. Do not add a hyperlink to an external page, within the post itself, add it in the comments

5. Tag people that you want to see your post (don't abuse)

6. Use hashtags to get better exposure

7. Seek commentary, ask questions

8. Add images that go with the post or add content that is of value, don't let the image come automatically from links you post.

9. Vary the content you post, use video, documents, polls, multiple images

10. If you use video, upload the video into the tool itself. It's okay to embed from YouTube

11. Replicate and repurpose on your company page and it's perfectly okay if other colleagues copy and paste your update and post it as theirs. Performs better than re-sharing (more on that below)

Demystifying Digital Interaction
Digital Interaction vs Face to Face Interaction

I thought I'd share my personal thoughts and views on the value of a digital interaction on LinkedIn - assuming that social media interaction especially on LinkedIn for all us B2B bods, can be related to a physical networking interaction with peers/colleagues.

The best approach to social media engagement especially for those in Social Selling, is to behave as close as possible to how you'd behave in a face to face interaction and conversation.

This is our view and assessment on the value of digital interactions:

This post was updated on 24th August 2020.

One thing is clear, in the world of events to increase website visits you will need to spend money on advertising or you will need to start writing value adding-content that will drive free and organic traffic.

What is value-adding content? The term refers to content you produce for which your sole intention is not to sell but to educate, inform or entertain. In my world event generated content meets the education and information purpose by default. Event organisers should not have any issue with publishing top notch relevant content in the first place. The challenge is repurposing it efficiently to drive engagement and as a result of that engagement intiate/spark/stimulate interest in future events you have coming up.

Right after Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet, despite also being a social media site. This means that the importance to build and promote an online video presence has gained more relevance over the past couple of years and will continue to do so.

B2B companies are now seriously using videos as part of their overall marketing strategy and B2B events have been recording tons of video content at their events far longer BUT they are no way near as savvy when it comes to capitalising on it.

That is why we have come up with 6 simple tips to optimise your B2B YouTube presence:

Want the inside scoop on the hashtags every B2B marketer should use to make sure their event is super successful? Look no further. We've done all the hard work for you, compiling a list of the essential hashtags in each category, plus tools to help you find the ones that could make or break your event. 

Social media and event marketing are not natural bedfellows time or culture wise, even though social media marketing for events can be one of the most effective channels. That’s because event marketers are used to doing a marketing task and crossing it off their list. Social media isn’t like that unfortunately - it's an ongoing effort requiring the marketer to be “present” over the full campaign. Event marketers also tend to lean towards old school, with outbound “broadcast styles of communication (which is our mission to change!)

Good quality content is hard to come by in the event industry – it takes time, resource and your boss’ backing to put together something worth sharing.

And creating the content isn’t even necessarily the hard part; it’s what you do with it after that counts, and makes all the effort seem worth it. If you don’t know how to get your content into the hands (and screens) of the right people you won’t see any return on your investment.

Here’s what you absolutely must do to amplify your event content – and using social media is the fastest, most effective way of doing it.

This list has been reviewed on 1 April 2017

This is our definitive list of hashtags every events industry professional must follow without fault.

Twitter is not only a tool that you will use to broadcast and say a lot of things about yourself, your company or your event. It is a tool to simply stay informed about your industry and getting interesting tips and content that you can literally use to do your job better.

This is the list I personally follow on twitter and since a lot of you asked me about this, here it is.

I recently took part in a podcast for Event Industry News to delve into what event marketers are getting right, and where they’re going wrong. The “Talking events” session was hosted by Event Industry News contributor James Dickson, and I was joined by Adam Parry, Event Industry News editor and organiser of Event Tech Live. You can check out the podcast in full at the bottom of this post , but just in case you don’t get a chance to, I’ve summarised the key points from our discussion below or go straight to the video if you prefer.

Email always comes out on top when event marketers are asked about their preferred or most effective marketing channels. But social media is catching up fast, and the only reason I believe it to be positioned in second place is that event marketers simply don’t know how to make the most of it. Here are our top mantras and musts for promoting your event on social media. Use this as an quick reference checklist for you and your team. 

You may have already read my summary of a recent 2015 social media marketing report, which covered the areas of social media that marketers are most comfortable using, the platforms they don’t plan on adopting anytime soon, and the amount of time they are dedicating to their social media activity, among other topics.

So here let’s look ahead – what does the future of social media marketing for events look like?

I came across this insightful and truly comprehensive report by Social Media Examiner, and found it so useful I thought I’d summarise it here and pass on some of these must-know nuggets of wisdom.

In its entirety the '2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report' covers the top questions marketers want answered on the topic of social media, how much time is spent on this increasingly vital channel, which platforms are most frequently used, and which ones marketers want to find out more about.

So here are some statistics to whet your appetite…

I was recently invited to take part in Pickevent’s Best practices in social media promotion session.

The event was jam-packed full of insights and best practices in social media promotion, and I can’t help but want to share them!

Here are my top eight takeaways from the session, with thanks to Elvira Hunte, Randy Nyssen and William Watts for being such fantastic fellow panel members. 

We advocate that before you do anything else to kick off your community, you must, must, must have a blog, but once that’s done and you’re in the routine of publishing regular content, it’s time to bolster your efforts with the other platforms available to you.

These are the steps you must take to develop your online community:

As an experienced marketer, you’re no doubt aware of the power of LinkedIn as a B2B marketing tool. But are you making the most of it for your events? If used correctly, social media (and LinkedIn specifically) can aid your event marketing strategy enormously, building the credibility of your conference portfolio, and you as an individual event industry leader.

Here are our top ten LinkedIn to-do's to help you raise your profile, engage with your community and ultimately generate leads for your B2B event.

I recently took part in a panel at Event Tech Live in Shoreditch. My fellow panelists and I were talking all things social media – the current landscape for events, how to effectively market events using it, and what the future holds. You can watch the video here, or if you’d like a quick summary, here are my top takeaways from the session: 

Twitter can be a hugely useful tool in the run up to your B2B event. You can use it to shout about any ‘VIP’ speakers, get your delegates involved before the day, and generally create a real buzz around your conference. For old school event marketers, the way twitter, and other social media outlets have revolutionised the events sphere, and B2B marketing generally, is a daunting prospect. But if you want to keep up with the ever quickening pace of the event industry, you need to get on board.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen quite a few examples of event companies jumping on the social bandwagon, just to have a presence. They’re not using it to add value, engage with their audience or even post interesting things about their events – they just populate it with links to their registration pages, standard event information which could be easily sourced online, and repeat tweets of their updates. How likely do you think it is you’ll be trending with this approach? Here are our absolute worst practices for event marketing on twitter – avoid at all costs!

As a content officer, conference producer, event planner or even a CEO for an event company, you probably have a lot on your plate already – and the prospect of striving to become a thought leader might seem daunting. However, as the face of your organisation with your potential delegates, it’s absolutely critical that you outwardly portray that you’re an authority within the industry your event serves. There isn’t a quick fix to ensure you’re regarded as such, but we’ve figured out the ultimate approach to get yourself, and your events, noticed.