There is no doubt that Social Media is now a huge part of our marketing strategy - especially in the millennial generation. We are the generation people turn their heads to in the middle of a meeting when a question arises about Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. We receive that look of "you know the answer to this one, right?". There is a level of expectancy that WE ARE SOCIAL MEDIA and that surely WE MUST KNOW the answer to the query that has arisen.
The simple fact is - we don't always know the answer! I work as a Social Media & Digital Marketing Manager at SoolNua in the meetings & events industry and even though I work on social media platforms everyday, I don't always know the answer either. Social Media platforms are ever evolving and it can be hard to keep up!
Over a series of 4 short blog posts, I am going to share some tips on a subject that we can all relate to - event hashtag trending. These tips are based on my experience of running social media campaigns for a variety of events in the industry that have trended online - from something as small as a meeting of 80 people to a conference of over 1,000.
Part 1: Timing.
Twitter can be a busy place at different times of the day or on specific days of the week. If your event is looking to leverage social media and bring the conversation outside the room, ask yourself the following questions to help inform your tweet timing:
1. What day of the week is the busiest on Twitter, in your country?
Wednesday is the busiest day on Twitter in Ireland— this means there are lots of potential people to engage with but also more competition on the platform to get your event noticed.
2. Is the time of your event during a busy or off-peak period for Twitter users?
While tweets receive the most clicks (on average) early in the morning, in the evening time tweets receive the most RTs and Likes (on average). There are a few variables to consider here based on what you are trying to achieve. Do you want click throughs to a website or are you looking for event awareness by having a high number of RTs? You can find the optimal tweet times for your time zone here.
3. What other hashtags / campaigns are running at the same time as your event?
You can check this out in your Twitter Analytics account (see screenshot below). You could choose to leverage this by building the topic into your event e.g. Win a Mother's Day lunch for 4 competition or have a festival theme social evening if around the time of something like Coachella.
