5 content creation marketing ideas for engaging events

Con­tent mar­ket­ing is all about the cre­ation and shar­ing of visu­al, audio, and writ­ten media for your audi­ence. Shar­ing com­pelling orig­i­nal con­tent allows you to edu­cate and inspire, spread the word about your brand, prod­uct, and ser­vices, and per­haps even go ‘viral’ if your con­tent real­ly res­onates!

Accord­ing to Hub­Spot 70% of mar­keters are active­ly invest­ing in con­tent mar­ket­ing, while 24% of mar­keters plan on fur­ther increas­ing their invest­ment. Yet despite the buzz around the undoubt­ed suc­cess of con­tent mar­ket­ing, there is one key sec­tor that hasn’t quite come to terms with it just yet—the event indus­try.

Imple­ment­ing a con­tent mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy can bring a new dynamism to your event, as well as cre­at­ing a buzz and sense of com­mu­ni­ty that can real­ly extend its last­ing impact. In this arti­cle, we’re going to check out the var­i­ous ways that you can use and cre­ate con­tent at your events, so you can get the max­i­mum val­ue out of all your hard work and prepa­ra­tions.

Ready? Let’s jump straight into it!

1. Harness the power of social media

You can live-stream your event to gain a much greater reach. Par­tic­i­pants can also live-Tweet their thoughts and ques­tions for a tru­ly inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence. Include the fol­low­ing in your social media feeds:

• Event insights: Share the most inter­est­ing and reveal­ing sta­tis­tics and facts from the var­i­ous speak­ers at your event. Twit­ter is often the best chan­nel for these kinds of live updates, don’t for­get to add your hash­tags!
• Add sta­tis­tics and info­graph­ics: Attrac­tive and inter­est­ing info­graph­ics can boost the engage­ment and reach of your posts, so with the per­mis­sion of your speak­ers you can share sta­tis­tics and info­graph­ics from their pre­sen­ta­tions.
• Share inspir­ing quotes: Lit­tle nuggets of wis­dom from your speak­ers in the form of quotes are extreme­ly share­able and neat­ly sum­ma­rize the best points and opin­ions found in your event. Keep a pen or record­ing handy and lis­ten for out­stand­ing quotes through­out the event—and don’t for­get to get the speaker’s per­mis­sion!
• Lever­age influ­encers: Mar­ket­ing influ­encers can help you pro­mote your event if it makes sense for their audi­ence. Usu­al­ly, the only thing you’ll need to do is offer them free entry and any free swag you might have.
• Share your atten­dees’ updates: Your atten­dees’ posts are a great source of insights and ideas as they share their own opin­ions on what they’ve dis­cov­ered at your event. Share their views, and thank them for their con­tri­bu­tions, they are sure to appre­ci­ate the recog­ni­tion.

2. Create engaging videos

Accord­ing to Hub­Spot, video has become the most com­mon­ly used for­mat in con­tent mar­ket­ing, over­tak­ing blogs and info­graph­ics. Make the most of this pop­u­lar and eas­i­ly-sharable for­mat with videos like:

• Inter­views with atten­dees and speak­ers: Ask your atten­dees of their impres­sions of the event, things they’ve learned, favorite speak­ers, opin­ions on key issues, and more. You can also get your speak­ers to give their thoughts on the top­ics dis­cussed dur­ing the event and cre­ate short, engag­ing videos based on these inter­views.
• Cre­ate videos based on indus­try pre­dic­tions: While you have access to key indus­try play­ers at your event, ask them to give their indus­try trend pre­dic­tions for the year ahead. Pre­dic­tions and fore­casts are extreme­ly pop­u­lar and wide­ly shared, so these videos are an excel­lent way to get your event firm­ly in the spot­light.
• Time-lapse videos: These are a great way to con­dense the busy activ­i­ty of your event into a short, eas­i­ly-sharable video.
• Behind-the-scenes: Show the human side of your event by shar­ing the prepa­ra­tions and behind-the-scenes fun that went into mak­ing it.

3. Write articles based on the outcomes of your event

With 89% of con­tent mar­keters using blog posts in their con­tent cre­ation strat­e­gy, it’s clear that the good old-fash­ioned writ­ten word isn’t going any­where. Your event can pro­vide the inspi­ra­tion for a whole raft of arti­cles, includ­ing things like:

• Guest arti­cles: Invite your atten­dees and speak­ers to share their sto­ries from the event, giv­ing them the space to expand on key top­ics of inter­est, share their exper­tise, or sim­ply give an overview of new indus­try devel­op­ments.
• Share your own sto­ry: Give insights into the chal­lenges of run­ning an event, the out­comes, the new peo­ple you met, or any oth­er per­son­al obser­va­tions. Your audi­ence will appre­ci­ate the human, behind-the-scenes addi­tion to the slick, pro­fes­sion­al pre­sen­ta­tion of the event itself.
• Cre­ate bios of your speak­ers: Share the pro­fes­sion­al back­ground of your speak­ers, includ­ing edu­ca­tion, work expe­ri­ence, and inter­est­ing sto­ries. This is extra vis­i­bil­i­ty for them, and great con­tent for you!
• Q&A: Pre­pare an arti­cle based on the Q&A ses­sion at the end of your event, pro­vid­ing the answers to ques­tions raised by the audi­ence. Speak­ers can also use these arti­cles to expand on points that they didn’t have time to address dur­ing the event itself.

4. Use event photos as content

Pho­tos are per­fect con­tent for your social media feeds, and peo­ple love to relive the moment and find them­selves in them. Encour­age your atten­dees to take pho­tos and share them with a hash­tag of your choice, and use them for things like:

• Pho­to col­lages: It’s easy to cre­ate a col­lage of the best pho­tos from your event. Check out these free col­lage mak­ers for ideas on how to get start­ed.
• Self­ie col­lec­tion: Events are ide­al places to meet inspi­ra­tional fig­ures, indus­try heroes, or just old friends and col­leagues. Share these hap­py moments and watch your social media engage­ment go through the roof!
• Have an offi­cial pho­tog­ra­ph­er: A pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er is a good invest­ment, as they can cap­ture the essence of your event with both can­did and staged pho­tos. Share these pho­tos wide­ly on social media and use them in your arti­cles.
• Pre-event pics: Build up the excite­ment to your event by shar­ing pho­tos of prepa­ra­tions, peo­ple arriv­ing, drinks, etc.

5. Create podcast episodes from your event

Accord­ing to Edi­son Research, more than one-third of Amer­i­cans age 12 and over (104 Mil­lion) are now con­sum­ing pod­casts reg­u­lar­ly. That’s a huge poten­tial audi­ence! Any­one can cre­ate a pod­cast with min­i­mal tech­ni­cal exper­tise, and they can become an excel­lent way to con­nect with your audi­ence. Your event can inspire one or more pod­cast episodes with things like:

• Pre­sen­ta­tions: A full record­ing of one of your speaker’s pre­sen­ta­tions (with per­mis­sion of course) can become the sub­ject of a pod­cast episode.
• Inter­views: Cap­ture can­did inter­views with atten­dees to cre­ate an inter­est­ing diver­si­ty of opin­ions on key issues.
• Pan­el dis­cus­sion: Cre­ate a pan­el dis­cus­sion at your event and record it for a pod­cast episode.

6. Wrap up

Cre­at­ing reg­u­lar, com­pelling con­tent can be dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly if you don’t have ded­i­cat­ed staff for the job. How­ev­er, your events can make for an excel­lent source of orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al from a vari­ety of sources, which you can use to keep peo­ple talk­ing about your get-togeth­er long after it has fin­ished.

When is your next event? Whether it’s online or offline, con­sid­er imple­ment­ing some of these cre­ative con­tent mar­ket­ing ideas and watch your engage­ment and inter­est grow!