You’ve created the perfect event, put hundreds of hours of work into getting all of the finer details correct, asked Noodle Live to create beautiful mobile event apps to help your guests have a smooth experience on the day. Now all you need to do is to get the word out. Easy right?
Well no, not always. Reaching the right audience and creating a buzz around your event is increasingly difficult in the busy online world. Luckily, there are some great tools that can help you to shout louder and reach a wider audience. Best of all, this selection are totally and utterly free*! That’s right: you pay nada, not a penny for them. That’s a bit nice, isn’t it?
*Ok, quick disclaimer: Some of these tools require paid subscriptions but they all offer free trials, so grab as much data as you can, while you can get it.
What is it? Ok, so you’d have to be a pretty tech-phobic #EventProf not to have heard of the amazing Eventbrite, but it’s so good that we couldn’t not include it. Team Noodle love browsing the events on Eventbrite every day to see the weird and wonderful things that are happening across the UK.
How can #EventProfs use it? Posting your event on the site will not only put you infront of a huge audience, it will also allow you to sell tickets, keep track of numbers and track your revenue.
What is it? The king of the newsletter, MailChimp is currently used to send more than 600 million emails every day. Wowser. The reason for its popularity? The service is easy to use with integrated mailing lists and ready-made templates that allow you to add photos and text within minutes. There are paid options but if you have less than 2,000 subscribers then you can access their free version. Thanks MailChimp.
How can #EventProfs use it? If someone is interested in your company then get them on your mailing list. Add a sign up to your website and when you’re out at events collect email addresses whenever you can. It’s a great way to stay in touch and let potential clients know about all of the great events and services you offer. We keep our clients informed about our latest mobile event apps with a regular newsletter that ensure we’re never out of touch for too long.
What is it? Don’t have access to a full time graphic designer? No problem. Canva allows you to edit photos by adding text and professional looking design work using a simple drag and drop function.
How can #EventProfs use it? Perfect for social media marketing or for adding visuals to your blog.
What is it? If you want to create a beautiful and bespoke website for your event (or for your company) then Weebly is a great option that also happens to be totally free for basic packages. Just like the much-hyped Squarespace platform (which costs around $8 a month), Weebly offers editable templates that allow you to create new websites in a matter of hours. It’s also seriously user-friendly, making it perfect for web-design noobs.
How can #EventProfs use it? Create individual websites for your events to help with your marketing and to get information to delegates.
What is it? Interested in using social media to promote your event? You don’t have to spend all day creating updates and monitoring your mentions and replies. Tools such as HootSuite allows you to manage multiple social media accounts from one easy-to navigate dashboard and also help you to schedule updates in advance. The platform will also generate basic reports on how many people engaged with your updates and which posts received the most interest so that you can adapt your strategy accordingly.
How can #EventProfs use it? Spend 20 minutes at the beginning of every day scanning what people are talking about on social media and then line-up your own updates for the rest of the day. Social media sorted!
What is it? A great tool for managing your Twitter followers and finding key influencers to engage with.
How can #EventProfs use it? Following the right people on social media means you have a chance to be seen by them and their audience. The platform also offers analytics so you can check the success of your campaigns.
What is it? Keep up to date with the latest news in your industry using the ever-awesome Google Alerts tool.
How can #EventProfs use it? Set up regular email alerts so that you are informed every time a new piece of content is indexed on Google that is relevant to your interests and area of expertise. If a new event is announced, you will know about it in minutes and if someone mentions your company online, you’ll be able to respond rapidly.
What is it? Organise all of the information you need to keep track of the social web in one place. Feedly allows you to capture updates from blogs you like, YouTube channels, websites and social sites into a single feed so that you can browse your personalised headlines quickly and easily.
How can #EventProfs use it? Spend some time connecting the blogs and channels that you view regularly and make it part of your morning routine to scan your headlines on Feedly. Pick out the stories that look interesting and send them out via social media to your network. Your followers are always on the lookout for great content and if you’re the one to provide it for them then you will raise the profile and authority of your company.
What is it? Originally created as a ranking system to rate your influence on social media, Klout has developed into a great tool for social media marketing. It helps you to find influencers and identify great content for your social media channels.
How can #EventProfs use it? Keep track of how fast you’re growing and how many people are engaging with you on social media to understand whether your social campaigns are successful or not. Use the content sourcing tool to look out for interesting new articles for your audience.
What is it? Connect your website to Google Analytics to get a better understanding of who is visiting your website and what they’re looking at.
How can #EventProfs use it? This is a very powerful tool and if you manage to master it you can gain all kinds of fascinating insights including where your website visitors are located, where they heard about you, how long they spent on your site and at what point they left.
What is it? One of the biggest challenges for online marketing is tracking conversations about your brand and your competitors. With so much information being posted online every day you can find really fascinating insights into how people feel about your brand, what they like and what they don’t like and what they are saying about your competitors.
How can #EventProfs use it? Mention skims the web and alerts you every time your brand or a competitor are mentioned so that you can join the conversation. If people have questions or concerns you can make sure you respond to them quickly and efficiently and if people are considering working with one of your competitors you have a chance to swoop in, ninja style and suggest your services instead.
What is it? Find new potential clients online and engage with them with one click.
How can #EventProfs use it? Find your target audience and understand how to contact them and talk to them online in order to generate more leads and potential sales.
What is it? If you’re creating great content, Uberflip will help you to make the most of it. It brings all of your content together (blogs, YouTube videos, eBooks, social updates and more) to create a bigger picture about your brand with the aim of increasing leads.
How can #EventProfs use it? Take your content to the next level and show it off shamelessly to your potential clients.
What is it? If you keep seeing interesting articles whilst on the go with no time to read them, use Pocket to save them and read them at your own leisure.
How can #EventProfs use it? Pocket can store articles and videos, so you can delegate time for research and reading rather than pausing from your regular workload during the day. A great way to stay on top of all the latest news and developments. Team Noodle use Pocket to keep up to date with all of the latest news about mobile event apps and event technology.
What is it? Storify was highly praised when it was first released a few years ago but it’s still massively under-used.
How can #EventProfs use it? Use Storify to pull together posts from across different social media channels, turn them into a story with your own commentary added and then publish them on your blog.
What is it? A great free tool to help you research and find the best hashtags for your tweets. There’s really not much point in sending out a tweet if you don’t use the right hashtags to tap into the audiences you want to be seen by.
How can #EventProfs use it? Work out who your target audience are and then spend some time researching what hashtags they follow so that you can be part of the conversation.
What is it? Find relevant websites and blogs in your field to follow so that you can keep track of influencers and what they’re talking about. AllTop serves up the most-read stories from each of the websites you follow most so that you can curate content from your field and find the most interesting articles.
How can #EventProfs use it? Send out the best articles to your social media followers to keep them engaged and to set yourself up as an informed and on-the-pulse thought-leader.
What is it? Analyse your competitors content and find out what is working best for them. You can also analyse content around any topic or keyphrase to see what people are clicking on.
How can #EventProfs use it? Come up with new content ideas for your blog based on the content that your target audience are responding most positively to.
What is it? A great option for finding images to accompany your blogs and social media content. Many of the images are free to use.
How can #EventProfs use it? If you run a blog or social media then these images are perfect for giving the posts a professional feel without relying on tiered and boring stock imagery.
What is it? Want to make your social media accounts more visual? Easel.ly allows you to create awesome infographics using easy-to-use ready-built templates.
How can #EventProfs use it? Infographics are brilliant for bringing dull data and stats to life. Create infographics using data about how many people attended your events this year, or how many events required formal dress compared to casual dress over the last 3 months. Interesting content like this is a great way to bring traffic to your website and possibly to drum up some PR opportunities too.
Know any free online marketing tools you would recommend? Let us know @NoodleLive and we’ll add it to our list. At Noodle Live we specialise in creating bespoke mobile event apps that are fully branded and feature real time updates and alerts. Interested in finding out more about how event technology could help you take your event to the next level? Feel free to book one of our free workshops.