[The following is a guest post from SF BETA organizer and Zaptix CEO Christian Perry.]
One of the fascinating parts of Silicon Valley -- and an aspect that most people outside the culture miss -- is that the center of the digital world still does plenty of meeting and mingling in the meatspace.
I've been putting together tech events for more than a year -- some of them, including SF Beta and geekSessions, are among the most popular in the Bay Area. While I like to think that the quality of the events has a lot to do with their success, we owe a huge amount to the way we've used social media to spread the word and boost attendance.
For other enterprising event organizers, I present to you seven ways of using social media to build successful events.
1. Create Facebook Events: Every time someone says they're attending an event on Facebook, all their friends hear about it in the news feed. One of our recent events, a small chat on OpenSocial, got 131 RSVPs for a 50-person room, and we used NOTHING but a Facebook Event page to promote it.
2. Use Facebook Groups: A Facebook group gives you an installed base of fans who are eager to hear about your events. Unlike Events, your membership keeps growing; you don't need to start over each time.
3. Post on Upcoming.org: With the rising prominence of Facebook, Upcoming isn't the force that it used to be. Still, it's a great way to share your event with more people.
4. Build a web presence, preferably as a blog: We've seen consistent traffic to all three of our major sites. I suggest using a blog format for your site -- it makes it easier to add updates and keep people engaged.
5. Incorporate social media: Did someone make a video of your event? Embed it! What about all those photos on Flickr? How about a Twitter stream? It's pretty easy to integrate all these things into your site, and it makes your events seem a lot more vibrant than just a static page with text.
6. Reach out to other social media creators: All those bloggers, photographers, and videographers need material to write about, photograph, and shoot. By reaching out to the social media community, you're almost guaranteed to start a conversation and raise awareness of your events.
7. Create events that don't suck:[ed. My fave!] Perhaps this goes without saying, but the better the event, the more likely all those blog posts and RSVPs will translate into warm bodies. Good weather doesn't hurt, either.
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