Facebook vs Twitter vs Instagram vs Pinterest. Which of these will Make Your Next Event More Successful?

There is no doubt that using social media platforms can help to spread the word about your special events, products or services to the masses. These days, family events, impromptu gatherings and outings are often initiated on some sort of social platform. Most commonly Twitter and Facebook.

However, it might be helpful to understand that different platforms have differing specialties of sorts. This could make certain social media sites better for your events’ particular product, less effective for your offerings, or even ineffective entirely in gathering people for some fun. Let’s take a deeper look at how best to utilize social media sites for event planning.

Finding the Best Network for Your Event

LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a mostly business oriented social network. For this reason, those who are promoting business services or products, may want to focus their social media marketing efforts here first, or most intensely. Business related services can be everything from office products to advertising services.

If other businesses are your company’s key demographic, creating groups, invites and running conversation on LinkedIn might be the best social site to target since your focus will be to increase networking with certain elements of any given business. On LinkedIn you can connect directly to the marketing or accounting head of a company, or communicate with them under their own groups.

This cuts out the middle man you may have if you try to focus business related marketing on Facebook or Twitter where the chances are high you’ll be speaking with a social media manager, and not the specific department head you need. When it comes to planning your events relating to business sales, you’ll do no better than inviting those in your demo through LinkedIn’s very event friendly platform. Don’t forget that planning the company baseball game is also possible on LinkedIn and quite often used for such.

Instagram and Pinterest – Arts, crafts, clothing, shoes; if you’re selling it, you are going to have pictures of it. If you have pictures of it, it should definitely be on Pinterest and/or Instagram. We already know that consumers do a lot of their product or service reviews online and we want that content easy-to-see, easy-to-find and even easier to share. Don’t make your customers look through a Facebook page to find your shop tab, to search your shop tab that probably has categories, to spend an inordinate time browsing, because the chances are high you’ll lose them before they buy.

On Pinterest or Instagram, you have platforms designed to display your products in an easy-to-peruse format, even, and sometimes especially on mobile devices, since we now know that mobile device sales have increased exponentially over the last few major shopping seasons. Make sure to utilize the friend or follow lists on these platforms and you’ll find a super way to get event invites out to the exact folks who enjoy browsing your wares. More often these days, these two formats are also being used for

Foursquare and Foursquare Business – Not all event planning organization will include making online purchases. They could be family reunions, training courses, or even just a social event at a physical address. Make sure your locations, whether business or your home, is added to the proper Foursquare platform. Since you will be privy to who checked in to your event through Foursquare, you can also utilize this system to carry out your event contests, games or even just take attendance.

While users get intangible bonuses for Foursquare check-ins, in the form of Badges, there’s nothing stopping you from rewarding your attendees through the information you can gather from this social platform as well. That might help get people off of the internet and into your physical location.

Facebook and Twitter – Though these two social networks are not as similar as some may think, they both certainly do have a great purpose to serve when it comes to event planning, management and helpful services. Consumers, friends, family, organizations, and just about everyone seems to be communicating about something on Facebook and Twitter.

For that reason, open and real-time communication on these two platforms is just about expected. If your are planning an event that will require extensive management, it is not only a great idea, but a super comforting one, to have a Facebook and/or Twitter account where possible attendees can ask questions. Having a potluck for a church gathering? Hook up an account on these media formats so that attendees can chatter about the pending event, discuss possible dishes, organize possible dishes and more.

However, do not, in any case, create one of these platforms for your event and then walk away. You’ll find interaction here to be an absolute requirement.

There are a few that seem a given. If you have video for a special event, it should definitely be posted to YouTube. Link to any of your other sites from there. Having an art gallery gathering? You should probably check out DeviantArt and Dribbble. Sponsoring a music event? Get on Spotify and get that music to the masses. Whatever your interests or industry, there is a social network, fully functioning and active, that you can network into and reap the rewards. You just have to do the work.