How to make the most of live events for content marketing
If ‘content is king’ then live events are the jewel in the crown – offering a priceless opportunity for brands to generate high volumes of content in a short space of time.
Live event coverage is in our DNA at Formative and we’re skilled at boosting events our clients run or attend throughout the year with packages of high-quality, journalist-led content.
For the brand journalists we send along to cover them, live events are like a trolley dash in a sweet shop: Live blogs? Tick. Video interviews with big names? Tick. Live tweeting? Tick. Fast turnaround articles? Tick.
But it’s not about sheer quantity and adding to the vast reams of content online – each event offers the brand a unique chance to hone its voice, through quality, targeted content.
How we do this
- Develop a marketing strategy
This covers all the key steps from building an initial buzz about the event to fast-turnaround session coverage and live blogs and tweets, to post-event reporting and follow-up.
- Create a promotion calendar
This helps to grow delegate numbers for the event by highlighting key speakers and creating direct marketing assets. We interview speakers where possible for articles in the run-up, giving them valuable airtime.
- Provide high-quality live coverage
Experienced, self-sufficient journalists blog live from the event and deliver fast-turnaround session coverage and catchy social videos. Social media coverage includes live news tweeting, sharing highlights and live engagement with followers.
- Follow up with KPIs and post-event coverage
Recording the impact of marketing activities helps us refine our approach and report back on KPIs. Post-event, we produce reports, whitepapers and long-form journalistic material.
Davos case study
Our journalists and social media specialists were embedded with the World Economic Forum’s Digital Team during Davos 2019, helping to run social channels, write blogs and video scripts and create graphics.
In the weeks running up to Davos, we supported the Forum’s internal digital experts by writing blogs and curating social media posts to introduce the Co-Chairs and key themes, engaging the attendees and a much wider global audience.
As part of the wider team, we helped to deliver 482.6 million attention minutes across all platforms, including:
- 5 million (+55%) social video views – an increase of 55%
- 4 million Davos blog views
- 140 million+ impressions on Facebook
- 7 million video views on LinkedIn
Future thinking
Crucially, live events live on longer for the brands we work with than just the months in the lead-up and the event itself. Planned carefully, they’re a goldmine of content that can be used for weeks afterwards.
Our CEO Gay Flashman says: “Often there are multiple experts or spokespeople available in one place, enabling marketers to schedule interviews on video in a really time-efficient way.
“Crucial for any marketer looking to leverage an event after it’s finished is creating a plan to seek out and develop content that is not tied to the event itself – instead surface interesting and genuinely new storylines and information that you can seed to your own audiences long after the event is over.”
Want to learn more about how our coverage can boost engagement and raise the profile of your event?
Author:Kate Whiting - Senior Writer, Formative Content
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