How to Host a Successful Influencer Event for Your Brand

How to Host a Successful Influencer Event for Your Brand

While media events have been a staple for many decades, the rise of influencers has created an entirely new approach to this brand-building activity. However, it is important to understand the potential pitfalls and take care of the basics if you want to have a positive experience with any influencer or blogger event. If there is any time you want your brand and company to shine, it’s in front of those who will be writing about it to deliver your brand message to their captive audience.

Define Your Objectives and Deliver Substance

As influencers play an increasingly important role in how your prospects and customers view your brand, they are more demanding in what they expect from brands. In other words, bloggers understand their value and know that they don’t just serve as a conduit to bring attention to your new product or service.

Start your planning for a blogger event with the perspective of an influencer.

Ask, as if you were a blogger, “What are you going to find out by attending the event that will enhance your position as an authority and industry insider with your readers and base of followers?”

With that approach, you will shape the event to provide information that is useful and significant. This might include unveiling a new product (letting the influencers be the first to try it) or providing a unique experience that influencers will want to participate in. The essential goal is to provide something the influencer or blogger couldn’t have simply picked up from an email or press release.

Take Care of the Details

To avoid a blogger disaster such as that experienced by ConAgra Foods, translate your goal into an event that fits the influencer culture. For example, provide your key information to the attendees in digital form, not just a bag full of old school printed materials.

Other such details include:

• Using a hashtag that will help track media mentions across all platforms (not every blogger uses all the same platforms to channel information.) Remember, your hashtag serves as a keyword that allows you to track comments concerning your event.

• Capture your event with a stellar video and post it as quickly as possible after it closes. Also, create a microsite for the event if it fits your objectives. Consider filming a live stream of the event via Facebook or Instagram.

• Make sure to hand out goodie bags with product for influencers to take with them, as well as a printed card with your brand’s social media handles and hashtag for the event.

Planning is the key to a successful event, and it’s very helpful to review some of the more successful events that got a lot of subsequent mentions on the right channels. Vet the influencers in your niche and review their coverage of past events to make sure you’re inviting the right people.

Top Tier Media specializes in planning influencer events. Contact us if you need help setting up a stellar event!