Using Social Media to Organise Your Event
Planning a party? Organising a conference? Whether you’re organising a family reunion or a 3-day convention, Social Media can provide you with a variety of tools that makes organising an event easy and affordable.
Sending out Invitations
On Facebook, there are two free and easy ways to invite people. One is by creating an Event, and the other is by creating a Page.
A Facebook Event is great for creating one-time events. Setting it up and inviting friends is fast and easy, and you get to see in real-time how many people are attending and who will not. In addition, you can make this a “private” event exclusive to a closed group of people, so this is useful for family events or for a small and specific group of friends.
A Page is useful if you are organising a series of events and you want to display more information and encourage interaction with people on a number of topics. People can post questions on your wall, and you can respond to them. You can even add a tab with a registration form such as ContactMe for free. ContactMe will email you all the contact details of each person who signs up, which is very useful for you in creating a guest list and a database of contacts.
As Your Event is Happening
There will be some who won’t be able to show up to your parties or events, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t share in the fun or participate in the discussion. You can use websites such as http://www.livestream.com/ or applications such as Skype to webcast events as they are happening.
After the Event
Facebook Pages allow you to post photo albums and videos, which is great if you want to post highlights and moments of your event. This will really be especially useful for you if you are organising a series of events, since great videos and photos help generate interest and will help entice people to attend in the future.
