Guide to Using Social Media with Webinars

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Best-in-class webinar programs incorporate social media to raise engagement.When used correctly, social media can magnify the reach of your other webinar promotions. Some marketers fear social media because they don’t understand it or worry about posting the wrong thing. This guide will help you learn how to use social media better to extend the reach of your webinars and improve engagement. It outlines the role of social media in pre- and post-webinar promotion, interaction during the live session, and employee advocacy on social channels.

When planning your webinar strategy, social media is a critical tool for extending the reach of your promotions and improving the ROI of your webinar programs.

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Building your social media promotions calendar

To make your webinar successful, take the time to construct a complete social plan, including a calendar for when you’ll publish each post.

Here’s a sample timeline to help you map out your promotions.

4-6 WEEKS OUT 3-4 WEEKS OUT 2 WEEKS OUT 2-7 DAYS OUT LIVE DAY ON-DEMAND

• Write and launchblog post(s)

• Kick off socialmedia posts

• Follow webinarspeakers on socialmedia

• Follow attendees,sponsors, andnew followers whofound you throughwebinar social posts

• Assess social mediaposts and adjust asnecessary

• Release promotionalteaser video

• Highlight and tagspeakers onsocial media

• Assess social mediaposts and adjust asnecessary

• Highlight and tagspeakers on socialmedia

• Add new set offollowers whofound you throughwebinar socialposts

• Create relevant#hashtag

• Assess socialmedia postsand adjust asnecessary

• Post “Startingnow” messageon your targetplatforms

• Tweet key pointsduring the eventand respondto tweets fromattendees

• Share interestingquotes and imagesfrom the session

• Write a follow-upblog post

• Repurpose webinarinto shorter formstatic content

• Add new set offollowers who foundyou through webinarsocial postso

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PRE-EVENTPost more often on TwitterTwitter allows for more frequent promotional postings. The fast-paced nature of the platform lends itself well to additional promotional posts.

When you get new followers, consider following them back after checking out their credentials. You will want to be consistently active with tweets, retweets, and likes. In addition to sharing your company’s activities, share news of mutual interests. The shared interest tweets give you credibility.

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Pre-schedule as many social posts as possible

The days and hours leading up to your webinar can be hectic. Services like Buffer, HootSuite, Klout and Sprout Social will help. These social media tools can help you be a better marketer and more effective social media communicator. They can schedule posts and tweets across multiple channels and help you understand how well the posts are performing.

• Content discovery

• Broadcasts to multiple channels at once

• Preset postings times for each platform, profile, and day of week

• Limited reports

• Multiple pricing tiers, including free plan for 1 profile

• Discovery feature to find new people to follow or engage with

• Assign and track tasks for team members

• Robust reporting

• Brand monitoring

• No free plan

• Influencer rankings

• Content discovery

• Campaign planning

• Conversion reports

• User engagement reports

• One of the oldest and best known services

• Integrates with many services

• Easy, customizable reports and useful analytics

• Brand monitoring

• Multiple pricing tiers, including free plan for up to 3 profiles

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Capture attention with fewer words and clear messaging

Use relevant hashtagsUsing relevant hashtags can nearly double your engagement; however, using more than two hashtags can decrease engagement by 17%, according to Buffer. Use sources like hashtagify.me to find popular hashtags in your industry. Do a search for your potential hashtag to see how, and if, it is already being used.

Tag presenters and brands to raise awarenessEncourage your speakers to spread the word by tagging them (and their brands) in promotional posts for quick retweets or shares.

Use impactful imageryAccording to Buffer, tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than those without them. Whether it’s your webinar cover slide or a speaker photo, choose images that capture attention and support your message.

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Five tips for delivering effective messaging on social media:

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Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each channelKnow your audience on each platform and tailor your message accordingly.

A BrightTALK survey found that B2B marketers ranked LinkedIn as significantly more effective than Facebook and Twitter for content distribution, but all three are useful in building brand awareness and customer relationships.

Track your promotions to measure impactInclude tracking links on your social media posts to connect your social media efforts to revenue. You can use Google’s URL builder to create a link with UTM parameters for easy posts for quick retweets or shares.

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Effective Ineffective I don't use it

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A Blueprint for Twitter PostsTwitter posts get your webinar information out to your audience quickly and efficiently. As you set up each post, add these four items before tweeting.

Include the Twitter handle of the presenter and the company when possible.

Timing is everything. Social media scheduling tools can automatically analyze peak hours for your users and schedule posts accordingly.

Incorporate hashtags of relevant topics such as #Leads or #Webinars to increase your tweet’s visibility.

Remember to include a tracked link in the tweet to analyze the performance of your promotion across social media.

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Getting LinkedIn Viewsuse of its business focus, LinkedIn is an excellent platform for your webinars. Use it to its full potential by posting on your personal page, business page, and in appropriate groups. Follow these three tips to expand the reach of your promotions.

Incorporate keywords at the beginning of your title to show relevancy and catch the attention of your audience.

Make use of the extra characters LinkedIn allows by including useful information such as a reminder that the presentations will also be available afterward on demand.

Include tracked links to attribute registrations to your various social media promotions.

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DAY OF EVENTYour audience will continue to register through the day of your webinar, making it crucial to continue promotions through the live day. Using social media during your webinar can help pick up live viewers who may not have attended otherwise.

Attendees will be expecting information, asking questions, and making posts about the webinar through social media, so designate a member of your team to monitor and reply to incoming messages.

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Twitter is the perfect social channel for live webinars

You might also consider running a live Q&A on Twitter in conjunction with your webinar. You can do this either through your designated hashtag or by posing questions to your audience and asking them to reply. It’s a good way to see what your audience is saying to you and each other about your presentation.

During the event, your moderator or social media manager should be highly visible on Twitter: answering questions, sharing interesting stats, engaging with attendees, and routing technical challenges.

You should also designate a hashtag so attendees can follow and participate in the social conversation. Selecting a broad hashtag (#webinar) will dilute the conversation, but one that’s too long or complicated will confuse viewers. Find one specific enough to your presentation that your audience will only see tweets pertaining to your event. It also helps to include the hashtag in the bottom corner of your slides as a reminder or a notice for late-entry participants.

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Tips to expand the reach of your promotionsSocial media can provide a big payoff for increasing webinar views. To maximize your webinar’s exposure on social media, make sure you have sharing icons on your player page and encourage attendees to share the presentation.

The key to getting more social shares is to make it as easy as possible for your audience. Teach them how to use these buttons during your webinar introduction and encourage them to participate.

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Employee advocacy Empower your employees to spread the word about your event. Having individuals promote on your behalf builds trust and authenticity. You can even gamify social media engagement for your company.

Make sure your employees know which social networks your company is active on and how they can find you. Share emails with links, images, suggested messaging, and any applicable hashtags or handles they should include in their posts. Ensure enough employees are active on social so it’s not the same handful of people filling your social media channels. Diversity is key.

Be sure that anyone who posts on behalf of your organization is aware of any relevant brand guidelines as they apply to social media, especially including your policies on responding to inflammatory comments, logo usage, and other sensitive topics.

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POST-EVENTThe end of your live webinar should not mark the end of your promotional efforts. The on-demand recording of your session is just as important as the live presentation when it comes to attracting a relevant audience.

When promoting your recorded webinars, be sure to clarify that the content is “now available on demand,” as opposed to live. Keep releasing post-event promotions, especially when the content is relevant to the marketing campaigns. You’ve put a lot of effort and resources in your webinar and it can often be up-cycled in future marketing efforts.

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Create shareable pieces from the webinarYou can continue sharing bits of your webinar on social media for weeks or months after your live session. Experiment with poll results, interesting statistics, or quick bullet points. Scheduling these posts ahead of time helps to map out your on-demand promotions long after the live session is over.

Pull quotes from the sessionPlan your webinar with this in mind. Record yourself during a dry run — did you say anything that would make someone tweet your comment? Schedule those nuggets as tweets with links to the webinar for added awareness. If not, go through your presentation and create sound bites that would motivate attendees to tweet about your presentation.

Write a blog post to answer audience questions A blog post is a great opportunity to address questions received from the audience, whether or not you answered them during the live session. It’s likely that if one person had a question, others wanted to know the answer as well.

Consider these 5 ideas for promoting your on-demand presentation:

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Create a short highlights videoTaking a few important insights shared during the webinar and compiling them into a short video is a great way to reach a different audience with your content. If you don’t have in-house resources, consider outsourcing video production.

Repurpose webinar content into a series of short briefs or a longer guideOne of the major benefits of webinars is the substantial amount of content they offer. You can easily convert a 45-minute webinar into downloadable static content (point-of-view paper, infographic, white paper) to promote through social media.

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5Hacks to Build a Better Webinar13

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To learn how BrightTALK can help you acquire your target audience and accelerate your pipeline success today, visit our marketing solutions page.

Social media is just one of the many tools of the modern marketer’s toolbox.

It’s also a great place to test out new promotional formats and see what works for your

business. When used effectively, social helps drive more engaged attendees to your

webinars and creates increased opportunities for your sales team.

Contact us to request a demo or learn more at business.brighttalk.com.