Celebrity endorsements have always been a go-to for savvy event marketers, but as consumers become inured to a constant barrage of #sponsored Instagram posts, the impact of these celebrities has diminished.
Event marketers should consider stepping out of the box and avoiding the million-follower influencers for people who seem more "real" and obtainable - the micro-influencer.
Micro-influencers are people who have a smaller, more niche following, and because they likely have participated in fewer sponsored posts in the past, feel more authentic than their more well-known counterparts.
This is even more true for events, as micro-influencers are more likely to have a following of people in their geographic area, rather than a celebrity with fans all over the world.
Your strategy should start with figuring out what type of person is best for your event. Typically, they'd represent your ideal attendee.
Are they male or female? How old are they? What are they interested in?
Surkus, a technology-driven platform, can help you identify these micro-influencers by using a database of members with many data points about their demographics and interests.
Next, define how much the attendance of a micro-influencer and a subsequent social media post is worth to you. Don't see this as paying someone to attend your event, but more as a marketing cost that will drive awareness and engagement in an authentic way.
During your event, it's easy to keep your attendees engaged. Since you already know you've brought your ideal crowd, the micro-influencers should be immersed in the activities happening in your venue.
With technology from Surkus, you can use in-app messaging to speak to your micro-influencers in a real-time and discreet way, asking them to take a photo of a certain action or head to a different part of the venue.
But what happens after the event is over?
Traditionally, there's little to gather from your attendees after an event. But with technology like geofencing, you can now know when your attendees arrived and how long they stayed. Surkus has geofencing built into its app, so you'll know exactly how long your attendees were there.
And since they're being incentivized, you can ensure they don't receive their payment unless they met all of the event's requirements, like filling out a survey, staying until a certain time or posting on social media.
With your post-event report from Surkus, you can perform a post-mortem on your event to help you make better decisions for the next event you plan.
To find out more about how you can use Surkus technology to fill and promote your next event, reach out to [email protected].
