Successful event marketing starts with finding out how to reach your target audience. What channel do they spend the most time on, and what are they looking at when they are there?
For most event coordinators, the best place to reach their target audience is Instagram. With an estimated 1 billion active Instagram users every month, chances are you will capture an expansive audience there so long as you invest time in developing outstanding posts.
So that you can take full advantage of the opportunity, the experts here at InitLive have put together several tactics for building out your Instagram event promotion, broken down into a helpful timeline. This article will help you find and attract attendees to your event through Instagram using creative marketing strategies that will ensure your event stands out from the crowd.
Here is a quick list of what will be covered in this article:
Instagram Event Promotion Before Your Event
Take the opportunity to make your event stand out from your competitors by investing in a well-crafted brand and marketing strategy. What makes your event unique, and what kind can your attendees expect to have? Before you begin marketing your event on Instagram or any other channel, you want to ensure you have a clear understanding of how you want to position your brand.
Once you have your branding and marketing strategy solidified, it is time to promote your event on Instagram.
Create a trendy hashtag.Yes, hashtags still matter on Instagram, and finding a unique and catchy branded hashtag for your event is no easy task. Create a #hashtag that is specific to your event and specific to the volunteers—using these two types of hashtags before the event can do wonders in creating a buzz! Use them for every post related to the event so that people can click it and see the collection of related posts.
If you’ve never come up with your own hashtags, don’t stress. With a little creativity, you can come up with one that’s unique and stands out to attendees. Here are a couple of tips for creating an event hashtag for your Instagram event promotion:
The more unpopulated, the better.
You don’t want to use a hashtag that is already overpopulated. Not only will your content get lost, but your brand may become associated with unsavory posts from other sources.
Make it short and easy to remember. It can be as simple as using your event name and the year. Whatever you decide on, it should be easy for your attendee to remember so they can easily recall and use your event hashtag in their posts.
Instagram is a visual social media platform that makes investing in high-quality promotional photography an absolute must for promoting your event. Your Instagram post imagery should portray your event’s brand and the experience attendees should expect to have if they attend your upcoming event. This is all about standing out and getting people excited about your event, so make sure your imagery achieves those goals.
Build suspense for the event.Leading up to your event, it is important to build excitement and anticipation to entice people to buy tickets early.
Build excitement through your Instagram event promotion by posting teasers about your event line-up, contests, and ticket deals. The goal of these posts should be to create a buzz in online communities and start creating a fear of missing out to further increase your ticket sales.
Here are a few teaser post ideas to get you started:
Post about your entertainment and speaker lineup. When you book a headliner act, use that as an opportunity to post a sneak preview of your lineup.
Do a lineup countdown. Generate excitement by creating a series of posts counting down until you announce your event talent lineup.
Leverage your followers on Instagram to make the algorithms work in your favor. There is no better way to do this than through Instagram contests and giveaways. Plan a number of enticing giveaways and contests to run leading up to your event to create more engagement on Instagram that ultimately helps further market your event and sell more tickets.
As you begin planning your contests, it is important to create rules linked to each of your contest or giveaway posts. This will ensure that your contests are watertight to avoid any issues.
There are so many ways to organize contests or giveaways on Instagram. Here are some potential actions your followers can take in order to enter to win:
Like and share your post.
Make a related post with your event hashtag.
Tag friends in a post or comment on one of your posts.
Follow your Instagram account.
Tag your account in a story.
Make sure to include your event’s RSVP link or ticket purchasing link in your accounts profile information and post descriptions. These links are vitally important to your bottom line and offer you the opportunity to capture contact information and future market your events through other channels, such as through email, direct mail, or other social media platforms.
All the information captured through these links will provide you with insight into how close you are to meeting your goal and what additional steps or investments might be required to do so.
Volunteers are perfect for boosting visibility for your events online! Get them fully involved by having their daily duties include promoting your event on Instagram. Give each volunteer a target number of photos and share the photos with the specific event hashtag. Be sure to use your volunteer management tool to send reminders and provide them with a checklist that details what NOT to forget in their posts.
Instagram Event Promotion During Your Event
Social media has become an integral part of an attendee’s event experience. For many people, part of the joy of attending an event is documenting and sharing that experience on Instagram. Carry that idea over to promoting all the amazing performances, vendors, and activities during your event through your Instagram account.
Sharing content can keep your attendees informed on what amazing activities they can participate in and ensure they have an outstanding experience. Plus, they may feel compelled to share your outstanding posts share with their followers and friends too.
There is no better way to promote what is going on each event day than through Instagram Stories. Create stories to highlight keep activities or to get your followers excited about a specific act. An Instagram Story should be about engaging with your attendees during your event to ensure that they can maximize their experience during the event.
An Instagram Story also allows you to ensure your vendors are taken care of by promoting their food, merchandise or any other activities to all your followers. That way, you can ensure your event is a successful venture for them as well.
Share behind-the-scenes exclusives.People enjoy seeing what it takes to make the event a success.
Offer really engaging content through your story like exclusive behind-the-scenes interviews with talent or teasers about a surprise performance. Whatever you post it should get your followers excited and happy to share your stories with their network.
You want to make sure you don’t overdo it when promoting events on Instagram. There is nothing worse than annoying all the followers you worked so hard to get and deterring them from attending.
It is important to invest in quality content over the quantity of content you post on Instagram. Consider investing in a social media management tool that allows you to schedule out your posts to ensure you are in full control of your content strategy.
Instagram Event Promotion After Your EventOnce your event is over, there are still plenty of post-event marketing opportunities to help capture, document, and share the success of your event to followers.
Take a little time to review all the content you have captured and that others have shared. Then, consider how you can use it all for your post-event marketing activities. Let’s explore a handful of ways you can do this.
Give your attendees some recognition by sharing and commenting on their posts. Show your appreciation for their attendance and participation. If you have successfully used and spread the word for your personalized event hashtag, you should be able to find these posts easily!
Share follow-up posts.Once your event wraps up, you shouldn’t stop posting to your Instagram account. Form thank you posts and highlights to collect feedback. There is still a lot of value in harnessing Instagram after your event. Here are a few follow-up posts you should consider making once your event has ended:
Event Closed & Thanks - It is important to state your event is over and to thank all the people who attended it.
Consider doing a highlight reel of some of the best moments during your event to recap the experience for your followers.
Final Numbers - Share your success with your followers by posting about final attendance numbers and fundraising totals for the event.
Media Attention - Make sure to share any local media attention received during your event.
Lessons Learnt- Take the opportunity to review social media posts about your events and note comments or issues. It is important to document and acknowledge both the good and the bad so you can learn from others’ experiences.
There is only one way to create an even better event experience next time, and that is by learning how your event can be improved. Ask your attendees to share their experiences. Chances are, much of this feedback will be positive, which will help create a buzz around the event; any constructive criticism can help you improve.
Create a feedback survey and post it to your Instagram and other marketing channels to ensure the largest survey size possible. Once you have collected the feedback, you can further repurpose some of the positive statistics collected to promote your future fundraising events further. Any feedback can be helpful to you as you continue to plan and promote amazing events.
ConclusionNow that you have a basic understanding of how to successfully market your event using Instagram, it's time to start planning your event. Remember not to overdo the Instagram event promotion—the quality of posts is always more important than the quantity of your posts.
No event can take place without a committed team of event staff and volunteers. As you continue your event planning, here are a few helpful resources for event staff and volunteer management.
The Smart Nonprofit's Guide to Volunteer Management. Looking to build out your volunteer management plan? Check out this resource, and develop lasting relationships with vital supporters.
Volunteer Engagement | Strategies for Smart Organizations. Engagement is a defining factor in your volunteer program’s success. Learn some tips and tricks with our complete guide.
Volunteer Management Software: 12 Apps For Your Nonprofit. Need help pulling together your volunteer management plan for events? Here’s a buyer’s guide that will help you select the most effective tools possible.
When it comes to pools of potential attendees, Instagram is about as big as they come. In fact, as of 2019, the social media platform has an estimated 1 billion active global users every month. And with so many people regularly visiting the site for inspiration, not using instagram for event promotion means leaving tons of potential registrations on the table.
With that being said, promoting an event on Instagram isn’t as easy as simple as just posting a few photos here and there.
Doing it right takes strategy, skill, and just the right amount of creativity. That’s why we’ve put together this list of ideas that can help you get the most out of your profile, posts, and even paid ads.
A whopping 500 million users engage with Instagram Stories every day, and about one third of the most viewed Stories are created by businesses. That’s why 96% of U.S. marketers plan on using them as part of their marketing mix over the next six months.
SXSW (South by Southwest) does a great job with their stories. Even when the event isn’t in session they use Stories to engage users by linking to weekly curated Spotify playlists and other inspiration that keeps their brand top of mind.
The easiest way to expand your reach on Instagram is to use hashtags to your advantage. Users search by hashtag to find specific subject matter, and when you use these hashtags your posts show up for that search. (You can think of it much like the queries people use to search for content on Google.) More than likely, you’ll want to use a mix of the following types of hashtags to cover all of your bases:
Check out how IHG used #HomeTeamHospitality to promote their city-wide event when the NFL’s biggest game of the year was hosted in their hometown.
Your Instagram event marketing shouldn’t just retell the story, it should add to the story. It’s the key to creating content that both attendees and potential future attendees can resonate with. It’s also an area where you can really use your Instagram Stories to your advantage.
The IMEX group do an amazing job of highlighting their team, as well as the road to the event.
You probably have some big names on the bill of your event? So why not use their Instagram clout to bolster your own. Enter, the Instagram #takeover. An Instagram takeover is when you allow a guest to take control of your Instagram profile for the day and post content that they create ” pertaining to your event of course. Whether it’s behind the scenes content diving into how they get ready for the session or simply the type of content that’s made them a big name, it’s the perfect way to give your audience a new perspective (and add some followers!).
Check out how the Visit Boston CVB let photographer Derrick Mills takeover their Instagram and provide Instagram users with some breathtaking views of the city.
Dynamic content is one of the biggest pieces of a successful event, and repurposing it is your ticket to Instagram event promotion that doesn’t take too much heavy lifting. Best of all, repurposing the content from your event is a strong tactic for creating FOMO amongst those who didn’t pull the trigger on tickets this year’s iteration.
The annual Montréal C2 event for planners creates highly shareable, engaging posts using quotes from key speakers.
60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram, according to the platform’s website for businesses. That means that your paid advertising mix just got a new best friend. And while setting strong goals, making it look beautiful, and choosing the right ad format are great, your ads aren’t going to do you any good if you’re not targeting the right audience. In general, Instagram Ads are run via Facebook Ads Manager, and give you the same three main audience types to use in targeting:
Scroll your Instagram feed and pay attention to the ads that pop up. We almost guarantee that you’ll encounter an ad that aligns with a website you recently visited or topic you’ve shown interest in.
Let’s be honest: Instagram is all about the aesthetic appeal, and that means posting beautiful photos and designs when promoting your event.
The first step of standing out in a feed is to grab attention. As long as you can do that, you can expect the audience to interact with the message you communicate in the caption. But a well-crafted caption isn’t going to go very far if you can’t get someone to slow their scroll.
How could anyone scroll past this incredible photo posted by the Burning Man Festival Instagram account?
Source UGC by hosting a competition.Studies show that user-generated content has a 4.5% higher conversion rate. Plus, what could be better than having other people post engaging content on your behalf? And for event brands with an engaged audience, sourcing that UGC could be as simple as hosting a competition with a reward for submitting the best photo or even creating the perfect hashtag. After all, people are looking for any excuse to share incredible experiences in their lives. That means that your job is to a) create that experience and b) give people an easy way to share it.
This ball pit at Hubspot’s Inbound 19 event was the perfect place for a photo-op.
Coincidence? We think not! These attendees were invited to share their experience by using the simple hashtag #inbound19.
Sure, new social media platforms are bound to pop up, and one day Instagram may lose its luster. But we don’t see that happening anytime soon! And as events continue to raise the bar for immersive experiences, Instagram event promotion promises to be a strong lever marketers can pull to generate hype and registrations. It all starts with these eight sure-fire ideas that will help you make a splash in everyone’s feed.
Up next: Learn more about Instagram Stories and how you can use them for events.
How do you promote an event on Instagram?
Create an event hashtag and profile, mention them frequently, and encourage your attendees to do the same. You can encourage attendee participation in these efforts through sweepstakes for free tickets/swag, follower contests, and by just engaging with your audience on the platform.
How do you sell event tickets on Instagram?
There are several integrations that enable you to sell tickets directly through the app, or you can include a link to the ticket page in your profile.
Successful event marketing starts with finding out how to find your target audience . For most event coordinators, the best place to find your target audience is Instagram . Instagram has roughly 1 billion monthly active users, so there's a good chance you'll build your massive following there. However, to achieve this goal, you will need to spend your time and effort.
Therefore, we have written a short guide where we have collected several tactics for promoting an event on Instagram.
First, you need to make your event stand out from the competition by investing in a well thought out brand and marketing strategy.
What makes your event unique and what can attendees expect? Before you start promoting your event on Instagram, you need to make sure you have a clear idea of how you want to position your brand.
Also, in the early stages, you may have to resort to behavioral factors. This will create a false credibility of the event. You can buy instagram comments and likes. You need to do this only for the first time, until you start gaining a live audience.
Once you have your branding and marketing strategy in place, it's time to start promoting.
You can create a countdown by time, or by the number of remaining tickets. This will create excitement among the audience. 
Promotion of events through Instagram
Instagram quickly gained popularity among users and turned from a photo posting service into a powerful sales tool. Today, many goods and services are advertised through this social network.
Today we will tell you how to use Instagram to advertise your events
Creating an event account
To do this, you will need a SIM card that is not linked to other Instagram accounts. Binding to the phone is needed to confirm the use of various services, as well as to confirm account ownership.
Content selection and account filling
Naturally, the content should be visual.
Photos of the artist, posters of the event, photos from past concerts, directions, photos of tickets with information about where to buy... Special attention should be paid to creating a ticket raffle for a post with your tabsmall.com hashtag. All this can be done from the phone, but if you are uncomfortable, there is a special software that adapts mobile applications to work on a PC - Onlypult.com, Lattergam, Bluestacks.
Sample accounts:
Target audience search
There are various ways to search for the target audience. The most popular is through the communities of our "star". You can use both Instagram and VK accounts. The collection of the audience from VK is carried out using a special data collector; then these databases are loaded into InstaTool PRO mass following/mass liking services) and auto-subscribing or auto-likes are launched. You can simply set up an auto-subscription for people from the city we need, this is also convenient.
Advertising with influencers
Influencers are popular bloggers with a large number of subscribers. We find such a person in the city we need and write directly our request. You can work both for cash and barter. At the same time, it is preferable to give a person a ready-made text for a post in order to be sure of the effect.
There is also insta.direct - a service for seeding ads on Instagram. With it, you can set up advertising for the audience we need, selected by city, age, gender, interests. According to the same parameters, we select people who will post posts with announcements of our concert. It is worth considering that the text should not be advertising, it should be "spiritual" and catch a potential visitor. It is preferable to attach tickets with a photo.
Buying posts in Instagram publics
As Instagram becomes more popular, the number of publics increases. If you decide to turn to their services, you need to understand whether the audience of a particular public is right for you.
