This document provides strategies for using Twitter to promote events. Some key points: - Twitter is a useful tool for event promotion because many people use it to discover information and engage in conversations about events. - The strategies discussed include creating an event hashtag, collecting attendee Twitter handles, running contests on Twitter, facilitating pre-event conversations, and amplifying key moments during the event on Twitter. - The document breaks event promotion into four phases - promotion, pre-event, during event, and post-event - and provides tactics for each phase, such as building buzz before the event and facilitating sharing after the event.

1. Supercharge
Your Event
Marketing
with TwitterBy: @MichaelRHunter at @Infusionsoft and The @TwitterSmallBiz Team at @Twitter

2. Table of Contents
The Game Has Changed 3
Why Twitter? 4
What Types of Events? 4
Creating Your Event Marketing Strategy 5
Implementing Your Twitter Event Marketing Strategy 8
Promotion 8
Pre-event 11
Pre-event Checklist 13
During Event 14
After Event 16
Recap Tips 18
2Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter

3. We help small businesses succeed.
3Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
ARE CHANGING THE
GAME FOR EVENT
PROMOTION AND
PARTICIPATION.

4. We help small businesses succeed.
4Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
The Game Has Changed
Event marketing used to consist of PR, direct mail, and traditional media including television,
newspaper, and radio.
While you can still have some success utilizing those channels, it’s important to recognize that
the way people consume media has drastically changed over the past decade.
Social media and mobile technology have significantly impacted the way we search, discover,
consume, and share information.
According to a recent Pew Research study, 56% of all American adults own a smartphone. This
means that over half of your audience has a computer in their pocket that can access the Internet
and social media with the touch of a button.
Twitter has 241 million active users, 76% of which use Twitter from a mobile device. (Source:
Twitter internal data)
These two statistics will consistently grow as mobile technology exponentially improves, year
after year.
This eBook will help you discover the untapped potential that currently exists for all of your live and
virtual events, and how you can use Twitter to drive awareness, increase attendance, and facilitate
engagement for your next event.
76%
56%
Twitter has 241 million active
users, 76% of which use
Twitter from a mobile device.
56% of all American adults
own a smartphone

5. We help small businesses succeed.
5Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Why Twitter?
Instead of turning on the television, tuning into the radio, or opening the newspaper, audiences
turn to search engines and social media for event information.
Before registering for an event, people often search social channels to hear what others are
saying about the event.
Many people turn to Twitter for this information, since hashtags and advanced search
capabilities make it easy to find conversations around any given topic.
Since Twitter users are limited to 140 characters in their tweets, people know they’ll be able to
find content that is direct and to the point. Within a matter of seconds, a person can read several
tweets around any topic and get a decent understanding of their peers’ opinions about a specific
product, service, or upcoming event.
With the strategies and tactics outlined in this eBook, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge
and tools needed to leverage Twitter to facilitate conversation around your event. It’s these
conversations that will drive more awareness, skyrocket your engagement, and ultimately
increase the attendance to your next event.
What Types of Events?
Live Events Virtual Events
• Workshops
• Seminars
• Conferences
• Keynote Speeches
• Association Meetings
• Fundraisers Galas
• Awards Ceremonies
• Networking Event
• Trade shows
• Radio show
• Virtual Conferences
• Virtual Tradeshows
• Live Webcasts
• Webinars
• Podcasts
• Tweetchats

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6Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Changing Your Event Strategy
The key to any successful event—online or live and in-person—is planning. It’s important to make
sure that your marketing strategy becomes part of your planning process for all of your events.
Below are some of the key components of your marketing strategy that you’ll need to consider to
maximize the success of promoting your event.
1. Determine Clear Objectives
2. Define Your Target Market
3. Discover Conversations Already Happening
4. Detect Influencers
5. Develop Authentic Relationships
6. Distribute Quality Content
7. Demonstrate Thought Leadership
8. Devise Compelling Incentives
9. Direct People to Share
1. Determine Clear Objectives
What are you looking to accomplish with your event? Are you simply seeking to educate? Create
brand awareness? Increase attendance from last year?
Whatever it is, it’s important that you set clear objectives, because you will be designing your
promotional strategy to achieve them. Without clear objectives, it’s easy to get off track and
invest time and resources into ideas that aren’t aligned with what you’re ultimately looking to
accomplish.
Determine different objectives for before, during and after your event.
Once you’ve determined your objectives, make sure they play a role and influence how you make
decisions moving forward.
Ask yourself, “Is this in alignment with my objectives?”
2. Define Your Target Market
This step should be fairly easy since you probably have a good idea of who your customers are
and what market you are serving with your products and services.

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7Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
That being said, maybe the target market for your event is a subset of your business’s target
market; maybe it’s a new target market altogether. It’s important to define whom your event is
designed to serve in order to more easily identify individuals and communities who are most
likely to be interested in your event.
3. Discover Conversations Already Happening
In most industries, there are already conversations happening on Twitter. Twitter is based
on open and public conversations…don’t be afraid to jump in and add value to someone else’s
conversation.
Using tools like TweetDeck or Hootsuite, you can monitor conversations taking place around
specific hashtags and keywords, in real time.
These tools make joining the conversation extremely easy. Take note of specific keywords that
are being used, frequently used terms, and topical interests of your target market.
4. Detect Influencers
In most industries there are several well-known people that have the ability to influence and
persuade a significant percentage of the marketplace.
These are people that you may want to consider bringing in to speak at your next event.
If you’re unsure of whom the influential people are in your industry, don’t worry, it’s usually
quite easy to find them. These people are often referred to as gurus or experts, and often have a
celebrity-like following.
These influential industry leaders tend to surface within a few days of monitoring the
conversations your target market are having.
You can also use Twitter’s “Who To Follow” feature to search for influencers on specific topics
and interests.
5. Develop Authentic Relationships
It sounds trivial and obvious, but relationships are the most essential component to pulling off
any type of successful social media campaign.
Social media has the ability to spread messages far and wide. The key ingredient to accomplishing
this is people—people have to spread your message. And people are more likely to promote a
person, a product, or a brand, if they have a relationship with the company or can identify with
their story.

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8Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
There are no shortcuts to relationship building…it requires consistency and some heavy lifting.
Here’s a resource that will help you if you’re just getting started: https://business.twitter.com/
build-your-base
6. Distribute Quality Content
Quality content and thought leadership (number seven on this list) go hand in hand, but there’s
one key distinction. Thought leadership involves sharing content that you’ve created, whereas
distributing quality content has more to do with curating content from other credible sources
that your audience will find valuable.
Twitter is based on conversations, so it’s important for you to think in terms of a face-to-face
conversation. No one likes people who only talk about themselves. Don’t make that mistake on
social media.
7. Demonstrate Thought Leadership
Thought leadership in the digital age really comes down to positioning and creating quality
content consistently.
An easy way to begin to position yourself as a thought leader is to interview other people in
your industry. If you’re able to produce a quality interview, the person you are interviewing will
typically share that interview with his or her network. This will generate more exposure for you
and your business.
8. Devise Compelling Incentives
More times than not, people just need a little extra incentive to take action. Come up with some
creative ways to incentivize people to purchase tickets early, share your event on twitter, etc.
Early bird discounts, exclusive offers, and free upgrades are some of the more common incentives
in the event space.
9. Direct People to Share
Usually, when people register for an event, it’s a purchase they are excited about. People like to
attend events with friends or co-workers, so, after someone has registered, find creative ways to
get people to share your event with their Twitter followers.
Make it easy for people to share your event with their followers by providing pre-written tweets
that can be copied, pasted, and tweeted.

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9Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
YOUR HASHTAG
IS YOUR EVENT.

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10Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Implementing Your Twitter Event
Marketing Strategy
Now that you’ve created your objectives for before, during and after your event, it’s time to map
out the tactics of implementing your strategy to make your objectives a reality.
To make this easier on you and your team, it’s best to divide your event into four sections.
Keep in mind that the tactics that drive results leading up to your event are different than the
tactics that will drive results at your event.
4 Areas of Focus
Promoting Event Pre-Event During Event After Event
The rest of this eBook will be full of ideas and ways for you to maximize the results for each of the
four areas above.
Keep in mind, you don’t have to do everything outlined in this eBook.
Determine what’s most important and do the important things well.
Doing a few important things and executing with excellence is much better than trying to do it all
and executing poorly.
Promotion
Create a #Hashtag for your event early
A hashtag allows you and your attendees to find and get involved with the conversation taking
place online.
It’s important that your hashtag is short and easy to remember if you want people to actually use
it.
For example, the hashtag #SocialMediaWeek2014 or #InfusionsoftConference2014 is way too
long.

11. We help small businesses succeed.
11Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Instead, use something like #SMW14 or #ICON14.
Before you make your final decision on the event hashtag, do a simple search on Twitter to make
sure that hashtag isn’t being used for something else.
The purpose of the hashtag is to organize a conversation around your event; you don’t want to
accidently dilute the conversation by choosing the wrong hashtag.
Market your event hashtag
It may seem obvious, but if you don’t make people aware of your event hashtag, they won’t
know to use it. To increase the awareness of your event, it’s important to market and facilitate
conversation using your event hashtag.
Here’s a list of some ideas and ways you can market your event hashtag
• Website
• Promo Materials
• Emails
• Direct Mail
• Pre-event tweets
• Newsletters
• Blogs
• Videos
• Marketing Materials
• Advertising
• T-shirts, stickers, posters
• Event signage
• Name badges
Collect attendee’s Twitter Handle during the registration process
Collecting Twitter handles in the registration process makes it really easy to find and interact
with your event attendees.
After someone has registered for your event, give them a shout out on Twitter. It’s an extremely
simple tactic, and it’s a great way to personalize your event.
Leverage social validation
We all like to make good decisions, and social proof is one ways we determine whether or not we
are going to participate. Embed a Twitter feed on your event website to show what other people
are saying about your event.

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12Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Contests exclusive offers
A great way to increase traffic to your Twitter page is to create a contest for free tickets or have
an exclusive discount code that can only be found on Twitter.
If you have a compelling incentive, contests are a great way to extend the reach of your event’s
promotional campaign.
Facilitate word of mouth (WOM) marketing
As you probably know, word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful form of marketing out
there. Social media platforms like Twitter can be word-of-mouth marketing machines for your
event if you’re strategic.
One small but crucial tactic is to have social sharing capabilities at the end of your event’s
registration process. Include a Twitter button on your checkout page to make it easy for people
who have just registered to share your event with their friends. Twitter buttons allow you to
include pre-written tweet that can be published with one click.
Leverage your guest speakers Twitter following by tweeting them and igniting conversation
around a relevant topic. You can even include a 1-hour Twitter chat session in your speaker’s
contract to bring the conversation into focus on a specific date and time.
If you have a team, partners, sponsors, and/or guest speakers, create a series of pre-written
tweets (with your event hashtag) so they can easily copy, paste, and publish to their network.
Tweet-chats
Tweet-chats are scheduled conversations on specific topics that usually last between 30 to 60
minutes. There are tweet-chats taking place every week on topics like branding, social media,
content marketing, entrepreneurship, small business, etc.
One of the best ways to build a following on Twitter is to add value to conversations that are
already taking place. Tweet-chats are the perfect opportunity to join a conversation and have
your tweets be seen by other people who are passionate about specific topics.
If there’s an existing Tweet-chat that has participants that match up with your target market, it
might be worth your time to develop a relationship with the facilitator of that Tweet-chat.
If you have a decent size following or promotional partners with a big reach, it may be in your
best interest to facilitate your own Tweet-chat.

13. We help small businesses succeed.
13Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Twitter Ads
Use Twitter’s Advertising platform to amplify your efforts and drive additional awareness.
There are three types of advertisements you can run on Twitter:
• Promoted Accounts
• Promoted Tweets
• Promoted Trends
For more details on Twitter Ads, visit: https://business.twitter.com/ad-products
Pre-Event
Build buzz anticipation
Share “behind the scenes” pictures of your team setting up for the event, speakers arriving before
the event starts, etc. This is one tactic that music artists use to build their following; they take
pictures backstage before they preform you can only see those pictures on Twitter.
Another simple way to build buzz among attendees is to tweet and retweet people that are
talking about your event on Twitter.
Post countdown tweets from your Twitter page letting people know there are “X number” of days
left until your event.
Provide content teasers and quotes from your speakers and presenters.
Remember to use your event’s hashtag in all your buzz-building efforts on Twitter.
Determine 3-5 key moments during your event to amplify
Pre-determine several key moments during your event that you would like to generate a lot of
attention around on Twitter. You can schedule tweets in advance, using tools like TweetDeck or
Hootsuite, to make your life easier the day of the event.
Depending on the size, structure and duration of your event, this number may vary. A weeklong
conference will most definitely have more key moments than a one-day workshop.

14. We help small businesses succeed.
14Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Be creative strategic with local partnerships
Are you hosting a regional, national or international live event where you’ll have people traveling
to attend your event? If so, think about creative and strategic partnerships you can form with
local vendors to add value to your attendees.
Reach out to trendy, local transportation companies like Uber or Lyft and have them issue you
a unique discount promo code in exchange for the promotion of their services to your event
attendees.
Restaurants and entertainment venues are some other types of businesses that are usually
willing to offer discounts in exchange for promotion. You can integrate these discounts with your
event by making the discounts available only to people who tweet about the local vendor and
include your event hashtag.
The venue will be able to verify by looking at the Tweet on the attendees phone and requesting to
see their conference name badge.
Stay organized with a pre-event checklist
If you’ve run any type of live event before, you know that once the event starts there’s little time
to think. The better your pre-event planning, the smoother your event will go.
Use checklists to stay organized and to ensure you’re completing everything that needs to get
done in order to have a successful event.
Lucky for you, we’ve thrown a couple large-scale events and have created a general checklist for
you to use at your next event.
Every event is a little different, so feel free to expand upon what we’ve created for you… or use it
for inspiration to create your own checklist that makes sense for your event.
Example Promo Tweet:
“It’s lunch time at #ICON14. Send a Tweet to @YardHouse include the hashtag #ICON14.
Show server to get a 20% discount!”
Example Attendee Tweet:
“Heading over to @YardHouse for lunch. The morning session at #ICON14 was off the charts!”

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15Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Pre-Event Checklist
6-10+ Weeks
Communicate your objectives strategy with your team
Decide on the official event hashtag start to use it
Set up your social monitoring tool to track your event hashtag
Make sure your venue has Wi-Fi that can handle the size of your audience
Establish discounts with local vendors: transportation, restaurants, entertainment
4-6 Weeks
Create a Twitter list for attendees, speakers, sponsors tweet them
Conference Mobile App: Load all links content
Promote Mobile App to Attendees
Make sure event signs have the hashtag prominently displayed
Make sure all of your social media channels have accurate information and links that work.
2-4 Weeks
Include the event hashtag in all of the presentation slides
Determine 3-5 key moments during the event to amplify
1-2 Weeks
Hold a training session with all event staff who will be using social media
Print out a tips sheet/posting guidelines the event schedule for your team
Pre-schedule tweets for time-specific events the 3-5 key moments
Pre-schedule shout outs to sponsors partners

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16Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Days leading up to the event
Test digital displays with the Twitter feed for your event hashtag
Test your live streaming setup days before the start of your event
Post “behind the scenes” content
Engage with attendees facilitate excitement
Delegate specific responsibilities to individual team members
Each Day During Your Event
Print and distribute an updated schedule to your team
Double check scheduled posts
Remind your emcee about the event hashtag any Twitter contests
Amplify (tweet retweet) your key moments
Post pictures
Have fun!
During Event
Make sure the event hashtag is on all event signs and materials
Keep the hashtag top of mind by including it on all signs, print materials, and slide decks. At
Infusionsoft, our annual small business sales and marketing conference is branded as #ICON14
this year. Yes, our event name and brand has a hashtag in it.
Have your emcee repeatedly mention the hashtag from stage
Even though you have the hashtag on signs and handouts, people will still forget to tweet. Make
sure the emcee mentions the hashtag throughout your event.

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17Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Have the live event hashtag feed displayed in a prominent location
Typically the best place to display the live hashtag feed for your event is at the entrance to your
event space. This keeps Twitter top of mind every time people enter and exit the room.
During breaks you may consider projecting the live hashtag feed on the main presentation
screens at the front of the room.
Incentivize audience participation on Twitter
Sometime people need a little extra incentive to get over their “tweet-phobia”. People love to win
prizes or free products.
The prize doesn’t have to be crazy or expensive; keep it simple. Give away a book on a topic
related to your event, a free product, or a gift card to a nice local restaurant. You can even work
with sponsors to donate awesome giveaways.
At #ICON14 this year, we will have hotel room upgrades and 4 VIP seats in the front row that
will be awarded to people actively participating on Twitter during the event. Both of these prizes
have big value, but cost us nothing.
Double check tweets scheduled in advance
At live events, the only thing you can be certain of is that something unexpected will happen.
Schedules change, speakers’ flights get delayed or they go over the time they’ve been allotted.
To avoid causing confusion, double-check your schedule every morning and a couple times
throughout the day.
Live-tweet presentations and retweet attendees quotes comments
While the majority of your focus should be on amplifying the 3-5 key moments of your event,
you can also Tweet quotes and stats while a speaker is on stage. Be sure to include the speaker’s
Twitter handle and the event hashtag in your tweets.
Remember to retweet people who tweet out useful takeaways from the event or share positive
experiences. If you have an active audience posting on Twitter, retweet 2-3+ tweets for every
tweet you publish.

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18Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Live video feed? Involve your virtual audience on Twitter
Are you live-streaming your event to a virtual audience? Don’t forget to include them too. At
other event’s I’ve attended, they’ve sometimes taken questions from the audience via Twitter,
which included virtual attendees as well.
Even if a question isn’t chosen during the event, it’s best if you make sure to answer everyone’s
questions via Twitter to the best of your ability.
Promote nearby restaurants entertainment
Give local restaurants a shout out on Twitter to help attendees find great places to eat nearby.
Even if you don’t have discounts arranged with places to eat in the area, your attendees will
appreciate you taking the guesswork out of finding a nearby place to get a quick bite to eat.
Promote your sponsors during the event
Don’t forget to show your sponsors some love on Twitter during your event too! Depending on
the size of your event, this can be a big value-add for sponsorship.
Tweet out photos from the event
Posting event photos on Twitter are the best way to share what’s going on at the event. When
this is done well, you’ll make people wish they had been at your event themselves.
Capture video of your event
Capturing video is always a great idea. Not only can you package the video of your event into a
product for sale, but you can also create a highlight recap video of the event to post on Twitter
after your event. This footage can also be used to create a promo video to help get people to your
next event.
After Event
More times than not, this section is forgotten.
The event is now over, it was a success, but most event hosts don’t realize the event is still very
much alive on Twitter.

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19Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Many events take place over a weekend and end on Sunday afternoon or evening. Especially for
larger regional and national events, attendees will catch a plane the next day; so, even though the
event just finished, attendees are still tweeting about the event.
Here are a few tips on what to do after your event is “over” to take full advantage of the
successful event you just completed:
• Thank your attendees
– It’s simple, but it’s an important gesture to express your gratitude for the people that
made your event a success.
• Retweet Tweets from attendees
• Publish Event Highlights
– Images of key moments
– Recap video, blog, or infographic
– Embed tweets attendees published during the event
• Share the slides from speaker’s presentations
– Upload presentation slides to Slideshare and Tweet a link to the slides using the event
hashtag
• Tweet out a survey asking attendees for feedback to make your future events better
Other things to consider:
Launching a quality content campaign in conjunction with your event
With all the people tweeting about your event, your brand and website will most likely
experience a spike in traffic before, during, and after your event. This is a great opportunity to
demonstrate thought leadership with a quality content campaign that aligns with the main focus
of your event. The content could be a blog, a video series, or even a podcast.
As long as the content aligns with the main focus of your event, tweet links to this content using
the event hashtag for up to a week or two after your event.
Internal Debrief
Unrelated to Twitter, it’s really important for you to get together with your event team to debrief
the event.
It’s easy to push this off, but you will find it highly beneficial to get everyone in the same room
within 24 hours of the event ending.

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20Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
Answer these questions while the event is fresh on everyone’s mind:
• What worked well?
• What didn’t work?
• What can be improved upon?
• What new things can we do next time?
Recap Tips
There are many different ways that you can integrate Twitter into your next event.
The key to using Twitter effectively is to start planning in advance and incorporate Twitter into
your event early in the process.
If you just do the things listed below, you will be already be far ahead of most other people when
it comes to leveraging social media for events.
For your next event, don’t feel like you have to do EVERYTHING outlined in this eBook; select 5
or 6 elements from this eBook and start there.
Choose a short, unique, and easy-to-remember event hashtag
Collect Twitter Handles during the registration process
Interact with attendees on Twitter in the weeks leading up to the event
Try to keep Tweets retweet friendly (120 characters or less)
Set up a listening tool to monitor participate in the conversation
Create compelling incentives to drive more results
Display a live feed of your event hashtag in a high-traffic area
Put the hashtag on all event marketing materials email communications
Make sure to promote the hashtag before, during after the event
THE BOTTOM LINE….

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21Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
IF YOU DON’T MAKE
MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
YOUR ADVANTAGE,
IT WILL BE YOUR
COMPETITION.

22. Peter Shankman
CEO, angel investor and
networking expert
@petershankman
Simon Sinek
Leadership expert and
author, ‘Start With Why’
@simonsinek
JJ Ramberg
MSNBC Anchor,
‘Your Business’
@jjramberg
Seth Godin
Best selling author
and entrepreneur
@ThisIsSethsBlog
Want to hear world-class speakers
and see world-class Twitter event
marketing in action?
Attend #ICON14!
#ICON14 brings you some of the brightest minds in the world of small business today.
Get ready for groundbreaking ideas, powerful strategies, actionable insights and more
ways to grow, manage and prosper.
Join us April 23–25, 2014 at the Phoenix Convention Center. Representatives from
Twitter will be at #ICON14, you should be there too!
Go to attendicon.com and use promo code:
SUPERCHARGED100 for $100 off your #ICON14 ticket.
Save $
100
on your
#ICON14
ticket!

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23Supercharge Your Event Marketing with Twitter
About the Authors
Michael R. Hunter founded a Social Media Marketing
company in 2010 at the age of 21, and has designed
and implemented successful social media strategies for
a wide range of small businesses. He has experience
with local restaurants, large-scale regional events, an
array of authors and speakers, and industry experts.
He specializes in transforming businesses with no social
media presence or ad budget into brand powerhouses
with thousands of likes and followers using only
creative social strategy and execution.
In August 2013, Michael joined the Infusionsoft
team as their Social Media Strategist, and now plays
a crucial role in the direction of Infusionsoft’s social
initiatives. Michael also trains and consults Infusionsoft
customers, partners and employees on how to leverage
the power of social media, to achieve their long-term
business goals.
@MichaelRHunter | @Infusionsoft
Twitter Small Biz is the official team dedicated to
helping small and medium-sized businesses succeed on
Twitter. Follow them on Twitter as your go-to resource
for tips, best practices, product updates and case
studies.
@TwitterSmallBiz | @Twitter
Michael R. Hunter
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