You’ve used social media before your event to promote ticket sales and no doubt you’ll Tweet and post about the event on Monday morning—but have you considered leveraging social media during the event? Odds are, your event guests will be posting comments about their fabulous evening out, so why not maximize the effects of viral marketing and take credit where credit is due?
As your guests arrive, give them the tools they need to tweet, post and Instagram the night away. Incorporate your organization’s Twitter handle, Facebook page and Instagram user name into the materials you hand out at registration, or on signage around the venue. From the beginning of the event this reminds guests to post about their fun evening out, while incorporating your organization into their posts.
Go a step further and create a special hashtag for the event that guests can use in their posts. This hashtag could feature the event name, your organization name, or any tagline that could be associated with the evening. Remind guests throughout the night about the hashtag by featuring it on a slideshow or through announcements from the emcee.
Social media users love to create unique connections with others through various platforms. Provide this opportunity for your guests by inviting a social media savvy volunteer to be the “voice” of your online presence during the event. This volunteer can post for the organization and respond to your guests’ the posts, which will encourage guests to share with you and with their own connections.
With just a little bit of planning, you can use social media to engage your guests and to expand your organization’s audience through viral marketing.
Stephanie Flint , Event Consultant
Provide reading glasses.
When using BidPal payment processing, we recommend two volunteers per terminal. One volunteer can verify guest information and swipe credit cards while the second volunteer types in the bidder number and hands over the BidPal device or a “How to Smartphone” card. If you are not using payment processing through BidPal, be sure to have at least one registration line for every 100 guests.
Principal for a Day
BidPal’s number crunchers noticed an interesting trend: proceeds as a percentage of item value was extremely high. Five organizations exceeded 100% and another five achieved 90% and above.
Be sure your event emcee and/or auctioneer is well-versed in BidPal before your event begins so that they can influence the audience as effectively as possible. Then incorporate the following helpful announcements into the emcee’s script:
Many event chairs believe auction booklets are critical to the success of their event. But consider this: where do those booklets end up? Most guests throw them away, leave them on their table, or set them down for their all-important adult beverage and never use them. What a waste.
Apply this same concept to your silent auction. Recently, I saw an organization use the online gift registries of several major U.S. retailers to request items for their silent auction. While you may think registries at Crate & Barrel, Macy’s, Pottery Barn, and Target are only for the bride and groom, if you look closely you see they are promoted as gift registries, not just bridal registries.
Dress volunteers in apparel that coordinates with your theme. Keep with the ambiance of your event and use apparel to help your volunteers stand out. Hawaiian leis would be great for a beach inspired event. Volunteers wearing Santa hats work great for holiday themed night. Fun green hats add a festive feeling to your St. Patrick’s Day event and they can be spotted easily throughout the venue space.
Auctions at golf outings historically under perform and for good reason—golfers typically can’t bid while they’re on the course. That is about to change. BidPal’s cellular solution allows golfers to bid on their smartphones from the golf course, and allows you to capitalize on what used to be down time.
