Social media has quickly moved to the forefront of marketing almost any business. Research shows 90% of retailers have at least two social media channels they use for marketing and this means that places like Facebook and Instagram can get pretty crowded. That’s why if you want to use social media marketing for your physical pop up event, you need the right strategies and tactics.
Choose the best channel
For starters, you need to use the platform that your audience uses to have the best chance of reaching them. A few examples include:
- Facebook – most widely used site, nearly 90% of 18-29-year-olds are on there and 75% of users log on every day. Brands can use text, images and video as well as create a Facebook event
- Twitter – generally younger audience and around 40% use it daily. Brands can post pictures, text and video but there is a limit of 280 characters
- Instagram – around 33% of internet users are on there and more than half are 18-29s. Brands can post videos as well as images
- Pinterest – generally female audience and is a visual search engine more than social media site so brands can post images
Create the right content
Once you know where you will post, you then need to choose what to post. Each social media site has its own best practices around image sizes, video length and other specifics. And a campaign itself should come in three main phases – before the pop up, during it and after the pop up.
In the before the pop-up stage, you can tease the products that will be offered. This means lots of great images and also create content for Pinterest which takes longer but also has a longer impact. Behind the scenes content is also popular and creating a Facebook event is ideal.
During the pop up it is important to keep active on the chosen platforms and ensure there is plenty of information for people wanting to visit. Share videos and images daily from the pop up and emphasise that this is a temporary feature.
After the pop up, you can still work on your brand awareness and build your audience for a future pop up or other event. Also, try to use user-generated content – if anyone has tagged the brand in images then reuse them and give appropriate credit. You can even share memories or stories from the event.
Reaching more people
With your basic strategy in place, there are a few other options to consider reaching more people with the news of your pop-up event.
Paid social ads are a good way to boost reach and get eyes on your content. You don’t need a massive budget and with the right targeting, it can be a cost-effective option. Or you could engage an influencer to use word of mouth marketing to talk about the pop up to their audience and generate interest that way. You could even use business partnerships to get other companies to promote to their audience in return for a similar favour.