The Social Media Life of a Diversity Event, Part I: The Pre-Game.

Pre-game: Five Tips for an Event-Based Social Media Campaign.

Recently I put together a special program in diversity for a prominent business school that focused on the general lack of recognition of women in technological spaces. Though I have been planning diversity events for years now, this one was different…even special. For the first time I was going to be using social media to manage, market, and capture an event. Additionally, the content of the program was going to be about the ways that social media can be utilized strategically to bring visibility and recognition to women in all organizations, and even for starting their own. Finally, this was going to be the first event of any kind at the school that would utilize a full social media campaign. The legitimacy of social media as a strategic resource for the administration of the school’s programs would be greatly affected by the success or failure of this event to meet its performance goals.

Now that the event is in the past tense I want to blog about my experience. I think that there are a few lessons that I learned in the process that may be interesting or useful for others. This blog will be cut into two parts. This blog will contain a short list of lessons derived from the pre-event planning and campaign building. The second part will be about the post-event wrap-up and conclusions.

1. Invite speakers who are Social Media Mavens.

When targeting speakers privilege those who are already involved in social media. Within diversity it is becoming easier and easier to do this because women and people of color have traditionally had to build the platforms for their voice outside of mainstream communication channels. Social media allows for them to do this and network effectively among each other. What has been very inspiring to me personally is the number of thought leaders and business professionals from racial/ethnic/gender minority groups participating in Web 2.0 technologies. But, whatever your target pool of speakers may look like, choose the ones that are already plugged-in and engaged deeply in social media. That way you will truly be able to take advantage of their networks, thereby receiving a viral effect on your event’s publicity and exposure that is exponentially greater than you can generate on your own.

2. Utilize Twitter “#hashtags” and “@mentions.”

Now that I am becoming more skilled with social media I try to give my tweets more impact by targeting them to some specific person or group(s). While it’s true that all of your followers will see the targeted tweet if they happen to be monitoring their account in real time, the @mentions make sure that specific people will get your message whenever they happen to check their account. The #hashtags, on the other hand, allow your tweet to be seen by anybody who has a search for that particular name, such as #smccville. Always ask the target group to “RT (retweet).”

3. Google Docs for RSVPs.

The Google Docs package contains a custom form option. Recently, a friend introduced me to this program and in 30 minutes I was creating custom forms designed to capture the vital information I would need to chronicle and keep in touch with my event attendees. The program organizes the data into a spreadsheet and also has nifty graphics. I have found it quite useful for segmenting the audience based on different types of affiliation with the university. Warning: Be careful about asking for too much information.

4. Blog about the event.

Though I host the events in my special programming series I am usually not one of the panelists or keynotes. My intellectual contribution is usually in the forming of the event rather than the content of the conversation. I like to blog about how I got the idea to put the event together in the first place. It deepens the narrative meaning of the event for potential audience members by “priming the pump” so-to-speak and gets the conversation started before the date of the event, which also builds anticipation and buzz.

5. Livestream/Ustream the event and upload the content onto YouTube.

Livestreaming services are readily available online and free to use. They are also very customizable, so you can brand them for your organization (sometimes this is an extra fee, though). With an extra click of the mouse you can record the event right onto your hard drive for uploading later onto YouTube. All programming or other event structures have several potential audiences to reach and limiting the “live” experience of the event to only those who can physically attend is, I now believe, a missed opportunity. I am in a university setting, so I am always asking myself the questions: How do I engage the alumni? How do I reach the greater university? How do I reach the community? With the free livestreaming services I don’t have to compromise. Also, when attempting to measure the ROI on the event, adding the livestream viewers and the YouTube views to the attendance counts can makes for a dramatically different portrait of the events’ “financial performance.”

Check back for The Social Life of a Diversity Event, Part II: The Post-Game.