Grow your engagement on LinkedIn and your Live Event awareness through these simple steps brought to you by Social Media Examiner.
How to Use LinkedIn to Amplify Your Live Event Experience
Want more leads, connections, and exposure from the live events you attend? Wondering how to use LinkedIn to build rapport with people who follow the event?
In this article, you’ll discover a strategy for using LinkedIn to build awareness for your business before, during, and after a live conference or trade show.
1. Build Awareness Before the Event
The month or so leading up to an industry event, your company’s LinkedIn page, your key stakeholders’ profiles, and your profile should set the groundwork to:
- Promote your brand’s presence at the event.
- Connect with attendees and speakers.
- Associate your brand with the value inherent in the event.
Here’s how to accomplish these goals.
Highlight Your Presence at the Event on Your Company LinkedIn Page
This first step will help expand your audience of attendees and speakers.
Edit your pages and profiles to emphasize the upcoming event. Add a new header image that mentions your affiliation with the event, including details like your booth number and/or the date and time of your scheduled presentations.
Next, create a post sharing all of that pertinent information and a CTA for attendees to follow and connect with your brand at the event. If there’s an event hashtag being used on LinkedIn, add that to your posts. Pin that post to the top of your updates section for the duration of the event.
Connect With Speakers
Use the event’s agenda to identify presenters and search for them on LinkedIn. You can then send a personalized connection request. Keep in mind these speakers will be inundated with requests, so it can be tricky to stand out. Here’s how to cut through the clutter:
Personalize the request—that’s the bare minimum. An automated request will get lost in the shuffle. When writing your message, start with a polite greeting, state your name, share a relevant personal link, and set expectations.
Send the request from your personal account. The request should be a personal one, not on the brand’s behalf.
Connect With the Event Group on LinkedIn
Participate in LinkedIn groups to make more connections before the event, share your valuable pre-event content, and participate in discussions.
LinkedIn groups are a little hidden within the site’s functionality, but they’re still active. You can find them with a regular search. On the search results page, click the More option and select Groups.
#2: At the Live Event
You’ve connected with an audience of potential attendees, advertised your presence, and offered high-quality content to whet people’s appetites. Once the event begins, you should continue to make connections and nurture, and further link your brand awareness with the event itself.
Use the My Network Tab to Connect With Attendees in Real Time
Networking is one of the most compelling reasons to attend an event. With LinkedIn’s mobile app, it’s incredibly easy.
I find connecting on LinkedIn is far more effective than handing out business cards. Instead of hoping someone keeps my card long enough to get to a computer and maybe connect, we can do it in the moment. The last few events I’ve attended, I’ve seen fewer and fewer business cards changing hands. We’re all already carrying smartphones, so why not use LinkedIn for networking instead?
In addition to old-fashioned handshakes and introductions, you can connect with on-site attendees with just a few quick steps.
When you speak at an event or have a booth, open the My Network tab and tap the Connect button.
Share Key Takeaways in Real Time
One easy way to earn more attention for your brand during the event is to bring takeaways from the event to your audience in real time.
When anyone on your team attends a session, encourage them to post standout thoughts and quotes, in the moment, using the event hashtag.
To avoid clogging people’s feeds with multiple posts, start with a “parent post” on your LinkedIn profile. Use the parent post to announce your intention to share takeaways in real time. Ideally, your post should include a photo of the speaker and a quick summary of the upcoming session. Then you can post notable quotes and takeaways as comments on your parent post.
#3: After the Live Event
Once the event is over, continue to bring value to your new audience by re-purposing the content you captured during the event and adding new insight to keep it fresh.
This is a great opportunity to strengthen the connections you made with speakers at the event, add some credibility to your brand’s thought leadership, and continue conversations about topics discussed at the event.
Publish a Long-Form Event Wrap-Up Post
Create a long-form LinkedIn post using key takeaways from each session you attended. Encourage people to add their own takeaways and experiences in the comments of your post. That way, you create a space for people to share ideas—you might even pick up a few insights you missed.
Share Event Quotes as Image Posts
Remember all those takeaways you shared as comments on the LinkedIn parent post? You can re-purpose those as illustrated image posts, for use on both your company page and individual profiles.
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