Almost 42 percent of the Earth’s population uses social media—that’s an astonishing 3.196 billion people.
A recent survey by Aventri and Little Bird Told Media of 185 event professionals revealed what our industry is getting right about social media use, and what could be done better to leverage the opportunities digital networks offer.
The Social Media Trends for Events survey found that marketing was the number-one use for social media among event professionals, with 96 percent of respondents using it for outreach. More than 75 percent of respondents also used social media for customer engagement, news, and community building.
Facebook is by far the most popular online network used by respondents (90 percent), with only 15 percent using Snapchat. But while Facebook is currently the most popular network in the U.S., Pew Research suggests that young adults are not joining Facebook and prefer Instagram and Snapchat. This indicates that event professionals might need to widen their participation in other apps to capture the next generation.
According to the report, only 38 percent of respondents use social media for crisis management. This is a missed opportunity for emergency communications for event planners since nine out of 10 social media users access accounts on mobile devices and are therefore easier to reach by this method than any other. Despite the ease of communication for risk management, 42 percent of organizations never collect attendees’ social media information at registration. Other worrying findings from the report indicate that social media efforts are often delegated to one person rather than the team, creating a weak link in coverage, and organizations are relying on "vanity" metrics rather than analyzing engagement, such as hashtag tracking, to plan their social media strategies.
For more information, including tips and resources for social media use, read the full report here.
