Last November when I sat with the Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival and discussed our plans for marketing the 2010 event, we considered the opportunity of expanding our social media community and utilizing that network to sell tickets.
For the last year my company (http://www.melodysadsworks.com/) had been using Facebook and E-blasts to promote events along with our traditional radio, cable and television advertising. I had seen some growth in the event attendance where I sent e-blasts. What my event clients needed was a way to grow that email list and connect with more people through social media.
During the City of Temecula's holiday promotions, Facebook, Twitter, E-blasts, and good old-fashioned flyers in schools were used to promote the Ice Rink. A Fios-buy on family oriented channels helped that new rink exceed all sales goals. Could the Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival do the same thing? (http://www.tvbwf.com/)
The first step was to redesign the website, Facebook Fan page, and Twitter accounts. Over the years volunteers had created a variety of these accounts, pages, groups, you name it. We wanted all fans accessing the same page.
Mission accomplished and the event now has over 1100 fans and growing on Facebook. But Twitter, now that's the tricky one. The Festival wants fans to know when bands are booked, reserved seats near sell-outs and well - camping is available. (No, there is no camping available for you guests of the Festival.) Utilizing only the web for promoting camp site reservations, the Festival opened camping on March 9th and sold out in less than an hour with more than 650 people oline at one time for 400 camp sites. However, most found out through e-blasts, Facebook at the website.
Twitter wasn't growing.
Enter stage two of the campaign: We have now been linked on our major radio station partners in Los Angeles and San Diego markets. We have also begun our "I Want to Camp" contest where guests earn points towards one - yes only one - campsite remaining. It is a coveted grand prize and for the next five weeks we will be Tweeting clues to earn points, pick up tickets at sponsors and walk away with souvenirs.
Last week when the numbers weren't growing fast enough, I tweeted "Want a Campsite?" Facebook had 18 posts in less than an hour and the Festival's phones went crazy. So we had to reword that little tickle.
Currently we have 36 of our Fans playing the game. (That's 36 in 5 days and we have a few dozen photos, two blogs posted to our wall as part of the contest.) We've also added about 20 followers on Twitter. We hope to have much more. Afterall, the goal is interaction. I'll keep you updated with the experiment but here are some things for newbies to social media "special event" promotion. Over the next few weeks, as tickets are left around town and teased on Twitter we should see more growth. Stay tuned.
HINT: If you have entertainers as part of your event - be sure to follow them on Twitter and Facebook, create a list of those performers on Twitter, and when pertinent, respond to the tweets and posts. Best of all, watch for fan messages and tweets. I was carrying on a conversation with one of our followers who saw a band posted and checked the band's website. I had already been told the band's website had a bad date on it, so when the question came through "Is this right? It says they are somewhere else on June 4th?" I was able to respond - and quick response - sells tickets.
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