Event organizers, are you looking for ways to elevate your event’s engagement and maximize your organic marketing efforts? Premium event photography and end-of-day highlight photos shared on social media can be your secret weapon. In this blog post, we’ll explore the power of these end-of-day highlights, how you can capitalize on photography from your event to drive better event engagement, and how this strategy can become a cornerstone of your organic marketing efforts.
The Role of End-of-Day Highlights in Event Engagement
First off, what are end-of-day highlights and how do you use them? End-of-day highlight photos, as the name suggests, are a curated selection of the most captivating moments from your event, professionally edited and ready for immediate use. Here’s how they can significantly impact your event engagement:
1. Instant Gratification:
In our fast-paced, digital world, instant gratification matters. End-of-day highlights provide your audience with real-time, eye-catching content, creating immediate excitement and anticipation as people look for themselves and their friends and colleagues each evening. These can be especially potent gratifiers if they come out before or during a mingle event, like a networking happy hour.
2. Captivating Visuals:
Engagement on social media is heavily influenced by visuals. Highlight photos are meticulously chosen to showcase the most exciting, emotional, or interesting moments of your event. They captivate your audience’s attention and focus on the story you want to tell.
3. Storytelling:
Getting to curate the story of the day is a powerful marketing tool. Creating reels or simple album posts lets you decide how to portray the essence, energy, and unique experiences of your event. It’s here that premium photography matters. Do you want your audience to engage with cell phone photos that don’t capture your brand or voice, or do you want curated images that share the story you craft?
4. Social Sharing:
Your attendees and participants are likely to share these highlights with their own networks, expanding your event’s reach organically and acting as an endorsement. Tagging participants also creates an opportunity for people to connect or reconnect after the event, enhancing your reputation as an excellent industry networking opportunity.
5. User-Generated Content:
When attendees see their own experiences featured in the highlight photos, they feel a sense of belonging and excitement. This drives them to create and share even more user-generated content, further amplifying your event’s visibility.
Strategies for Effective Use of Visual Event Highlights
Highlight photos generate great results, so here are some strategies to make the most of this valuable content:
1. Real-Time Sharing:
As soon as your highlight photos are ready, share them on your social media platforms. Timing is essential, as it capitalizes on the event’s excitement and immediacy. As mentioned above, it can be beneficial to release them at a regular time so participants can anticipate the drop and look through them with their friends. Timing it with a networking event can be a powerful way to help people break the ice.
2. Engage with Your Audience:
Encourage your audience to interact with your highlight photos. Ask questions, add a poll, share interesting facts, or invite them to share their own memories or experiences from the day. Engagement increases the likelihood that even more people will see these moments, upping your organic marketing reach.
3. Leverage Hashtags:
Create a unique (and short!) event-specific hashtag to accompany your highlight photos. This makes it easy for attendees to find and share the content, further amplifying your event’s presence. You could even consider making a Snapchat filter specific to your event to help people brand their social content with your preferred imagery.
4. Share Stories:
Social media platforms like Instagram offer Stories, which are perfect for sharing highlights. These stories are temporary, creating a greater sense of urgency and excitement and encouraging people to look at the photos when they are released.
5. Consistency:
While we’ve been talking specifically about the advantages of end-of-day highlights, don’t rely only on those for your buzz. You can also share content live during the event and create larger releases at the end of the weekend or week to maintain engagement and create a holistic event narrative.
6. Encourage User-Generated Content:
Motivate attendees to share their own photos and stories related to your event–you can add the most popular user image to your end-of-day highlight reel or include great images in your end-of-event presentation. People love seeing content they made on the big screen and will be more likely to share with your hashtags if you publicize your plan to share others’ content throughout the event. Adding user-generated content to your media not only adds authenticity but also extends your event’s reach.
7. Collaborate:
Work with your photographer or photography team to ensure they understand your objectives for highlight photos. Encourage them to capture moments that tell the story you want to tell and that resonate with your audience.
Measuring Success
The impact of your social shares on event engagement and organic marketing can be measured through a few different metrics:
Engagement Metrics:
Track likes, comments, shares, and clicks on your highlight photos to gauge audience engagement. If you have someone on your team who can engage commenters in real time, even better!
Follower Growth:
Keep an eye on your social media follower count during and after the event, as successful highlight-sharing can lead to a significant increase in followers.
User-Generated Content:
Monitor the number of user-generated posts and stories related to your event. This demonstrates that your audience is actively participating in the event narrative. Again, if you have someone checking in on social media, actively commenting can also increase post reach.
Hashtag Performance:
Analyze the performance of your event-specific hashtag to see how far your content has spread.
Direct Messages and Inquiries:
Measure any increase in direct messages, inquiries, or mentions related to your event. This is a good metric for heightened interest and engagement.
Your highlight reels at the end of the day and the end of your event are more than fun add-ons, they are powerful tools for driving better event engagement and bolstering your organic marketing. We understand this reality at Creative Spark Productions and offer both live images for real-time sharing and end-of-day highlights as package options for your event photography. We craft captivating visuals that tell a compelling story so you can create an immediate and lasting impact on your audience, connecting them to your message and to each other. As you encourage user-generated content, engage with your attendees, and maintain consistency in your content sharing, you will see results in the moment as participants connect to your brand and to one another and offer a lasting memento of all the work you put in to producing a high-quality, high-value event. If you have more questions about our services or are ready to book a premium event photographer for your next event, then reach out today! We can’t wait to meet you!