Live workshop: Promote shows and events on social media

00:00 Hello to everyone who is tuning in to this community workshop. And I am really excited about this one because we are going to

00:09 be talking about promoting events and your show and your channel on social media.

00:14 So if you are watching along live, feel free to introduce yourself in the chat. Let us know where you're watching from.

00:21 And while you do that, I'm just going to give a little bit of an explanation about today's ~ workshop and what our workshops are all about.

00:29 So If you haven't joined a Riverside Workshop before, these are basically spot out of the idea that we have a lot of knowledge

00:37 to share with each other within the community. And I'm Kendall, the head of community. And so basically what I decided is that it would be such a great opportunity

00:45 for people in this community to get to share real skills with each other. And we can all help each other become more successful in whatever we're doing,

00:53 whether that's our shows, webinars, promoting events, all of that. There's so much knowledge that we could be sharing with each other.

01:01 So that's where workshops really came from. But this specific workshop actually came from the idea that we

01:09 are all as creators, probably, if you're in this session today, posting a lot. And we are trying a million different ways to post,

01:18 trying to get people to our events, trying to get people to like and subscribe to our shows, to go to our YouTube channel. We're asking a lot from people online.

01:27 But maybe when we're creating all of that content, it's not really sticking like we wish it would.

01:32 It's not really having the kind of impact that we want it to. So we called in Amy Watts here,

01:38 who is with me. She's a B2B social strategist. And today we're gonna be breaking down really what you can be doing so that

01:47 you can be ~ creating content that will actually stick,

01:53 actually get people to do what you want them to do to click that subscribe button to sign up for your for your event

01:59 and really create actionable social media. Because while that's not just throwing a bunch of things at a wall,

02:05 it's what you can be doing so that the work that you are doing is actually creating more impact.

02:11 And so that's what the session is all about today. So in the chat, raise your hand,

02:17 you know, or just say me. If you feel like you're just kind of posting a bunch of stuff to social media, but you aren't seeing it move the way that you wish it would.

02:25 And if no one says me in this chat, I'm gonna feel pretty alone right now. But I I already see some thumbs up. Mm-hmm. Good, good. It's nice to hear that I'm not alone on this.

02:32 Cause yeah, we all spend a lot of time creating reels, creating social posts, and it's it's frustrating to see when that doesn't really

02:41 work as much as you'd like it to. So what can you really be doing to make things more actionable?

02:46 And so that's that's that's where we brought in Amy today. She's a pro. So hello, Amy.

02:52 Hello, I'm so excited to be here. ~ and this is a topic that I think about all the time,

02:58 that I work on all the time with clients, but I've never really had the chance to really zoom into it in terms of content or doing a webinar like this.

03:03 So yeah, very excited, very excited to see what questions come in and really dig deep into this one 'cause I think it's something like you said that

03:11 a lot of us can relate to. Absolutely. Actually, ~ when you had posted a few ideas or where we can go with,

03:17 I actually ran it through the community saying, Hey everyone, like what would you like to learn most about?

03:22 And I was surprised that the the like strong winner was promoting events. Not surprised because I know we all struggle with it,

03:29 but I think that it's not a topic that we covered before, so it's really exciting to get to cover it today. Perfect, let's get started. ~ so yes,

03:36 like Kendall said, today we're going to be talking about how to promote live events on social in a way that's actually interesting.

03:43 but before we get into it, I wanted to get everyone warmed up in the chat and just ask you what's your current favorite social platform and why?

03:52 I think mine at the moment is definitely LinkedIn. I'm a big LinkedIn user. I think the vibes over there are just a little

04:00 bit more forgiving, a bit more fun, less toxic. Less arguing in the comments. ~ so I'm really enjoying LinkedIn.

04:07 And also it's like I get messages from people for coffee chats all the time and it just feels like you can actually connect.

04:12 It's like old school social media. So I'm loving LinkedIn at the moment. And I see a lot of love for LinkedIn in the comments too.

04:18 A lot of love for LinkedIn. A lot of some love for threads too, Instagram, but I am seeing a surprising number of LinkedIn.

04:24 I thought somebody answered newsletter, which I think is really interesting. Yeah, I have been liking Substack recently as well.

04:32 I think that one's slowly climbing up the list for me. It's nice to kind of take some time to do some more long form content consumption

04:38 every now and then. Yeah. Ooh, threads. I haven't really gone into threads.

04:45 I think I made an account when it first launched and then just never never touched it again. But maybe I need to get into it. Get back into it. Yes, absolutely.

04:51 Yeah? Am I missing out? I've recently delved back into threads. Yes, yes. Bring come bring yourself there.

04:56 It's a lot of fun, actually. Okay. Perfect. Okay, so let's get into it. A little bit about me.

05:02 So I am a B2B social media strategist. I started out as an in-house marketer working at SaaS Tech startups.

05:11 ~ if you've worked in a startup, you know that the norm is to kind of do a little bit of everything. ~ but social was always my favorite part of the job,

05:19 the part that I enjoyed the most. and now I'm lucky enough to help some really cool brands create really cool content.

05:26 And the focus is always on trying to do things outside of what you might expect in B2B, trying to do things that feel a bit more fun and a bit more filled with

05:35 personality. ~ and a a lot of that includes promoting things that are happening on other channels and using social as a platform

05:43 to amplify other efforts. ~ which is why I'm very excited to get into today's topic.

05:50 which is about event promo. So what we're going to be covering today is why most event programs tend to fall a bit flat,

05:58 what actually converts versus what usually doesn't, and then some simple ways to get more out of every event that you do with some real

06:07 examples kind of dotted throughout that you can steal or maybe take inspiration from

06:12 if we want to be more PC. so to get us started thinking about this topic

06:18 I would love to know when it comes to promoting live events on social, what do you guys tend to post?

06:24 Like what is your kind of go to format that you usually rely on? Feel free to let me know in the chat.

06:33 I'll jump in. I'll say that I from from what I've seen as people are answering in the chat, from what I've seen is that a lot of

06:39 our creators are using reels to promote their shows. But when it comes to events, you see more of those graphic posts.

06:45 The like kind of the graphics that have the people talking. I mean, we posted one for for this event.

06:51 I think that people usually seem tend to tend to fall on that. But with this crowd, I was gonna say the other are a lot of clips here.

06:58 IG reels, reels. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's great to see a bit more variety here as well.

07:04 I love that the people it makes sense that the people who've come to the show today are already thinking of different ways to to promote events.

07:10 But yeah, like you said, usually a lot of the time it's kind of the static graphic.

07:16 And ~ that's exactly what I've got in the next slide. Usually it's just, you know, a graphic,

07:21 a link, and just like, you know, helping for the best that that turns into a sign up. Sorry, my puppy. My puppy is scratching at my desk.

07:29 Give me one second. Ugh, we're live people. We love live. We'll edit it out with magic audio.

07:36 That's what it's for. I wish I could show the puppy, Somebody says show the p show the puppy in the comment. but he's huge. I wish I could,

07:42 but he's huge and I cannot lift him up this high. Maybe later he'll make an appearance.

07:47 ~ but yes. But yes, Jump on the desk, yeah. usually a lot of brands will just rely on kind of as we've all seen

07:55 the same graphic a million times. you know. A title, and maybe a little speaker image,

08:01 a sign up button, ~ that feels just a little bit boring and doesn't really make that much of an impact. And most people will just post that once,

08:08 hope for the best, and then wonder later, you know, why why did that not drive any sign ups?

08:13 ~ but there's actually so much more that can be done with social. There's so much potential there of ways that you can drive interest

08:20 and also drive attendance because you're not just wanting to drive you know, sign-ups, you actually want people to be interested interested enough

08:27 to show up on the day and not just forget that something was added to their calendar a month before. Never work with kids and animals,

08:34 yes Tony. That's what they always say. And it's true. ~ so another question for you guys in the chat.

08:39 What is it that makes you want to sign up to event? If you see a LinkedIn post or an ad,

08:45 what is it that usually kind of pulls you in and grabs your attention, makes you think, that's that's something that I want to attend.

08:50 I would love for you to let me know. That's a really good question, actually. 'Cause like for me I would say the topic,

08:59 yeah, exactly what Charles has said, the topic resonating, ~ engagement with like minded people. Mm.

09:06 Interesting speakers. Yeah.

09:11 Presenters, yeah. Feel like I'm gonna learn something. Cost and new cost and new topics is an interesting because like I I realized recently that

09:19 I didn't write free on the graphics that I'm doing because 'cause I'm like, yeah, of course it's free. But then when I went to sign up for another event, Yeah.

09:25 I was like, ~ no, this one's charged. So yeah, I that's something that's actually already been a takeaway for me.

09:33 Yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't thought to charge for a webinar before. Wow, maybe I should be charging.

09:38 but anyway. Yeah. And this will be a million dollars from all of you. But yeah, these are all great reasons and those reasons that should be your content,

09:49 right? So great promo for live events usually taps into what you want your audience

09:54 to feel. Is it FOMO? You want them to think, wow, there are some really amazing speakers and really great guests there that

10:00 I want to be there and see what they have to say and maybe ask a question. You know, you want them to think, I really can't miss this. There's intrigue.

10:07 Is it an interesting topic? Like you guys have said, is it s a topic that's not usually spoken about? Something that feels a bit taboo or that no everyone's thinking but

10:15 no one really feels, you know, comfortable saying that's usually a topic that's going to get people interested and stop and scroll. Or even belonging,

10:22 you know, if it's a regular series of workshops like this one. ~ where it feels like there's a real sense of community there and

10:30 you want people really want to join and be part of that and be there with peers and there in the chat. you really want to tap into people's why.

10:39 Why would someone be interested in coming to this event? ~ and you know, instead of telling them that you want them to sign up,

10:46 give them a reason not to miss it. You know, it really taps back into the idea that I always bang on about,

10:51 which is that social it should be in an exchange. You know, it's not a place for you to broadcast and talk from your soapbox.

10:58 It should be giving something back to audience and giving them a reason to be interested. And that's very much what we need to do with event.

11:06 ~ puppy. Puppy puppy. Hope you can't hear all of that noise.

11:12 so in thinking about event promo and what works and what doesn't,

11:19 over the years I have developed my kind of framework of what works. You know, as an in house marketer

11:26 We were running regular events and I found that I was just kind of reinventing the wheel every time we had something to promote and

11:31 it was just making things a lot harder than it needed to be when it came to promotion. So I kind of developed this checklist almost of things that

11:38 we know work and things that we can do each time. And I've done the same thing for clients. I've developed upon that framework I already had.

11:46 ~ and now I've tried to turn it into kind of a more simple way to think about event

11:51 promo at every stage of the campaign journey. And hopefully. This is useful for you too. So I like to think about it as pre-event,

12:01 during the event, and post event. and I have kind of tiers underneath each of these to try and make it really easy

12:09 and really clear in my mind of what works, what has worked for me in the past, what's worked for other companies,

12:14 ~ and making it really easy so that every time I have an event to promote, I can go on this list and take,

12:20 yes, I've done this, I've done this, and it just makes it so much easier to put this all together. So let's go first into the pre-event stage.

12:28 And this is obviously where most of the work happens. It's where most of the buzz and the momentum is going to be created.

12:35 But it's also where a lot of brands either start too late or they just don't really

12:41 do enough. You know, they they post at one graphic or maybe two graphics, two posts, and think that's enough.

12:48 But there's so much more that could be done at this stage, especially. First one is something I never see people do,

12:55 ~ which is teasers, you know. I think a coming soon moment is something that gives

13:01 people something to look forward to. It shows that you're excited about what you're doing. and I don't know if any of you follow follow Pretty Little Marketer

13:10 or Sophie Miller. She does a great job of this, and I know that she's maybe not in the B2B space, but I think B2B should be taking inspiration from

13:19 what everyone else is doing because they're the ones driving real interest and real engagement. So, you know Yes. We actually just had an event with them,

13:26 so if you go to riverside dot com Amazing. slash webinars you can actually see the pretty low marketers event that they

13:31 did about about you ~ positioning yourself as a brand. Amazing. PLM are great. I love them.

13:37 ~ but yeah, imagine if you have like a an event that you're doing and you've got like a really great speaker and someone that you think that your

13:45 audience would immediately recognize and be really excited about, tease it. Have like a blurred image of them or get people to guess in the comments.

13:53 You know, make it an event. If you show that you're excited about something, other people are more likely to be excited about something.

14:00 I think that's something that we really lack in BSB So social sometimes. It's like a little bit of joy and whimsy. ~ so I would love to see some brands kind of bringing this into their event promo.

14:09 And then next one is something that everyone does, but maybe not everyone does in the most impactful way.

14:16 So the announcement, you know, this is your biggest organic moment essentially of this promotional campaign.

14:24 So treat it like one. Instead of just doing the same graphic, the same layout every time, have a think about

14:30 Like we said, what's the one thing that your audience will get out of showing up and just lead with that? Slate is an amazing example of a brand doing really cool

14:40 things with live events, especially with their promotion. I always come back to them for examples because I always think they do such

14:46 a good job. and if you know anything about Slate, you'll know that their social team is like a powerhouse of marketers

14:53 and content creators. Each person on that team has their own audience and their own following that would show up.

14:59 to see them talk about anything. So that's what they lean into with the promotion, you know, like this is a this is an ask me anything that they did where they were

15:09 inviting their audience to come and just have like a really casual, chill session asking questions to the slate team.

15:14 And so they kind of leaned into the more humor, humorous, casual side of things with this funny image.

15:20 ~ and they put their people front and center because they know that's what's going to drive them the signups. They've made it super obvious that this

15:26 is casual and this is going be fun. And no, it's not AI, it's just badly done Photoshop.

15:31 Which makes it more fun and more whimsical. Love it. but even if you have like maybe a less casual or less

15:39 fun ~ brand identity on social, you can still lean into what's kind of the main draw of your event,

15:46 right? If it's the the person that you're talking to, make sure they're front and center. If it's maybe not the person but the brand that they work for,

15:54 make sure that that's really clear in the visuals. if it's a really, you know, controversial or really hot topic,

16:01 make sure that that's super clear. just making sure that you're really leading with that and have a bit of

16:07 fun with how you present it as well, if you can. Next one is to give people a bit of a sneak peek.

16:14 You know, asking someone to take maybe an hour out of their working day is a big ask. And so if you want someone to actually turn up and

16:23 to actually attend and be present. You need to let them know what to expect and show them that it's going

16:28 to be actually worth their time. ~ Contento is a great kind of smaller brand to follow on LinkedIn

16:34 if you're looking for more recommendations of maybe not the huge brands all the time, because I know that they tend to feature quite heavily. ~ they're an amazing ~ startup brand to follow.

16:42 ~ and they create these carousels each time, just giving a quick idea of what someone can expect.

16:50 So, this was a webinar that they did with Pinterest. And they created this carousel kind of going through and showing what's

16:55 on the agenda, who is going to be speaking. ~ and I think this is just a great example to,

17:01 you know, give someone even more reason not to miss it. Keep it fresh in people's minds and make sure that,

17:07 you know, they know what they're signing up for. 'Cause there's nothing worse than showing up to a webinar during your lunch break

17:13 and realizing, ~ th this isn't what I expected at all or turning up and it's a sales pitch. Like I think we've all been there.

17:19 No one wants that. So Do what you can to make it really clear what value they're gonna get from this.

17:25 The next one is to make sure that you're utilizing all the channels that

17:30 you have available to you. You probably have more of them than you think. I think most of us maybe just focus on the brand page,

17:37 whereas you actually have the host, whoever's hosting it, they have probably have a LinkedIn profile,

17:42 your speaker or guest speakers, you if you have an employee advocacy program.

17:47 lean on that, see if your employees can start posting and helping you promote. You know, each of these profiles has an audience of their own.

17:55 And if you're not activating them each time, then that's a big missed opportunity. And something else you can do to make sure that you know all

18:04 of these different profiles get activated is to make it as easy as possible. Remove any of the friction. So instead of ha asking the speaker to create their

18:13 own post, put together a graphic for them, suggest a caption. ~ just make it really easy for them to talk about and share that they're part

18:20 of this and to promote it. seems like a given, but you know, it's really important that a lot of people ~ skip this part

18:28 or overlook it. So definitely think about all of the different people and different profiles that could be good for promoting your event.

18:35 The next one is about, you know, keeping up that momentum. You want to space out your content in the run up to the big day and also

18:44 you want to try and make sure that you're giving people something new every time. I see a lot of people just kind of repeating the same graphic,

18:51 reposting it a lot of the time. But if it didn't work the first time, it's not going to convince someone the second time. You need try something else. Give people some different messages,

18:59 some different imagery to cling on to. ~ also have some fun. I think maybe the theme of this webinar is whimsy.

19:06 But you know. There are so many creative ways to bring attention to your live events and also continue driving signups and they don't always have to be

19:13 the kind of standard traditional post that you imagine. Like this is a great example from SEMrush,

19:19 who I think this is for, yes, this is for the spotlight kind of in-person conference, but this could easily be applied to a live event.

19:25 You know, this is like a more evergreen, relatable, shareable graphic, but they've tied it into what people

19:32 can gain from coming to their event. so I think this is a great example of how you can do lots

19:38 of different creative posts but still bring it back to your event and bring it back to self-promotion. You could also do a carousel digging into

19:45 the topic a little bit or presenting a debate that's happening, and then in the final slide, say, We're actually doing an event on this,

19:51 you should join. You know, it's a it's another way to grab attention and to provide value, but you're still promoting the event that you've

19:59 got coming up. So Next stage is the during part.

20:05 And this one is tricky because you're busy actually running the event half the time. But a little bit of planning ahead means that you can still show up

20:15 in the feed while it's happening, or at least make sure that you're capturing content at the time that it's happening

20:20 to you. So the first way is to go live in the moment. So I never see people do this,

20:26 but I think it's such a missed opportunity. If you have someone extra on the team who isn't actually running the event,

20:31 Grab a quick screenshot of what's happening in the webinar, pull a quote from the session, a behind the scenes moment of getting ready,

20:37 ~ and share it during the event. You know, it reminds people of what they're missing, it might remind people, ~ damn,

20:42 I signed up for that and I forgot to join. And they'll go and join. or it makes people think, damn, I I missed it. I'll make sure to go and grab the recording.

20:50 I think sometimes it's just nice to show a bit more of the behind the scenes and, you know, remind people of what's happening.

20:56 I think I never see this being done, but I think it would be really fun. And then the next one is to capture as you go.

21:03 So I think sometimes we rely just on the recording or

21:09 the transcript after forgetting that there's so much that happens during the event that can spark ideas for great content.

21:15 So if someone says something really interesting, note down the time. You know, how far into this webinar are we?

21:21 Because sometimes, you know, there's great tools RibSide that help you create clips and things, but

21:27 you might miss one that you think, that would have been really good. Not every tool is going to pick it up. So note down something, that was an interesting moment.

21:33 Or, you know, screenshot if there's like things happening in the chat that are really funny or entertaining or unexpected.

21:39 Screenshot, note them down. ~ the questions that come up in the QA, it all makes for really good content.

21:45 So if you have the capacity. ~ go for it, If I could I'm sorry. if I could just jump in. go for it. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just gonna

21:50 give gonna give two examples of what I like to do. Yes, I love it. So first of all, the l the live chat, like as soon as I finish recording a live session,

21:58 I download the live chat just because like there's so many things about like people, what are people getting excited about?

22:05 What are people sharing with each other that you might miss while you're doing Mm-hmm. the session, but it's so great to get to see those conversations later,

22:12 whether that's for marketing insights to send to the product team. But for you, it's also maybe it could spark another episode idea,

22:18 maybe another event idea. Another is that when you do, Exactly. this is my favorite little trick,

22:23 when you do have one of those moments where you're like, ooh, definitely a great clip for social. If you're using Riverside, use the button on your keyboard.

22:31 It's my favorite thing. It creates a marker on your editor timeline so that you can actually find that moment really quickly.

22:38 So as I'm going through, I'm just like tapping that key the whole time. That's that. So just.

22:44 I had to, I had to, I had to jump in with two. Two of my favorites that I do. No, I love it. Expert tips. Expert tips. Yeah, pro tips here.

22:51 No, I love it. And no, that that's I love that you can download the chat. That's so useful because I always find that so annoying.

22:57 ~ usually when I'm like, I remember someone has said something really funny in the chat, but I was too busy,

23:02 you know, trying to keep up with everything that I forgot about it. So that's great. And even taking that quote like, my gosh,

23:08 I learned so much from this as a chat, Mm-hmm. you could turn that into a graphic post for social and be like,

23:14 if you want to catch the replay, it's here. Like there's so much that you could be doing. Exactly. And also usually like if I'm using one of those,

23:20 I'll reach out to the person that left it and usually because you don't want to just like use their quote and their name without asking,

23:26 but usually they're very game and very excited to be a part of it. Mm-hmm. No, everything is content,

23:31 as we always say. So grab as much as you can and you can make something out of it.

23:36 ~ yeah, moving on to the last stage, which is post event content. ~ and this is the bit that a lot

23:44 of brands skip entirely, which is such a shame. Because, you know, you think the event's done,

23:49 promo stops, we've got to move on to the next thing. But your content has a lot more life in it than you think,

23:56 and it's not just about, you know, recapping. what was covered in the event, but also thinking about how can we extend the shelf life of this content

24:04 too and repurpose it in different ways. So obviously the most obvious way is to share the recap.

24:10 Slate is here again. I love Slate, what can I say? they're a great example.

24:15 they did this really fun recap of all of the events that they

24:21 did in April instead of it just being a typical, this is what we did. They ~ took some quotes out of context and made this really funny carousel,

24:29 which is another example of something fun and webscool that you can do with your post-event content.

24:35 ~ but even just like a standard highlight carousel, here's what we covered, here are the questions that came up,

24:40 here are some of our favorite comments in the chat. you can really do a lot with a recap carousel or a recap video with

24:49 clips, or even just a a single, you know, text post. ~ but just make sure that you're signposting to that replay and making sure people

24:56 know that just 'cause they missed out on the day doesn't mean they can't be part of the fun.

25:03 And then next, repurposing the good stuff. So I think maybe people think that if they've already done a recap carousel,

25:09 they can't then go ahead and continue to use whatever came up. But those moments, the the funny comments or the great quotes during the webinar,

25:19 they can be repurposed again and again because it's relatable and it's relevant to your audience. And if it landed in the chat,

25:26 it's probably gonna land on social. ~ and yes, you can use clips from the webinars.

25:32 Those always perform really well. ~ but you don't just have to use clips, you can use them in different ways and see what lands for your audience.

25:38 I really like the style of quotes where you have like the screenshots of people talking and then the quote kind of written over the screen.

25:45 ~ it's maybe a more shareable way to share these kind of things. ~ but there's loads of stuff. You can create power cells digging deeper into

25:54 one of the topics that's covered, you can do So many things to repurpose what you've done.

25:59 An article, ~ a newsletter, anything, what's covered in your webinar could have such a long shelf life

26:07 if you actually think about how you can extend it. next one this is what kind of what Kendall mentioned is to kind

26:14 of keep that conversation going. If there's like an interesting question that came up in the QA, that can great that can make great standalone content,

26:21 or it can even become the topic of your next webinar. And make sure you use that in the promo and make it very clear that,

26:28 you know, this was a question that we got in the previous one. This isn't like something from our community that we're answering what

26:34 you wanted to hear. ~ and I think that's part of what creates that sense of community on social and that's what keeps people coming back because they're

26:41 included in the narrative, which I think makes such a difference. And finally, we have encouraging attendee content.

26:50 So Doesn't always happen, but if you're lucky enough to have this happen and someone recaps your event or what happened on social,

26:57 that's really amazing reach. Like that's reach that you can't buy. It's organic. ~ and it's much more likely to land.

27:05 So if when that happens, reshare it, engage with it, make people feel special, make people feel good. Make sure you like show that you really appreciate that

27:13 they've done it and other people will follow. People love to be appreciated by appreciated by brands and be shown love.

27:19 So Do what you can to really encourage attendees to create content off the back

27:25 of what you're sharing in live events. And on that note, on that note, a prize go some swag goes to peop anyone who posts and we'll pick one.

27:33 I'm kidding. I mean we could. Yes. That's a great idea. No, that's true. Any incentives you can add, Post about the event. Yeah.

27:39 why not? That's a great idea. Yeah, we'll send you a shirt. If we will draw out of a hat of everyone who who posts about the event,

27:46 we'll we'll we'll pick a few of you and send you a shirt. Love that. ~ Yeah, Yeah.

27:53 that that's everything I have in the slides, but I've seen a few questions popped up in the chat and I'm yeah, I'm happy to to answer any questions or dig a bit deeper into anything that I've

28:01 mentioned throughout these slides. Yeah, feel free to drop your questions in the chat.

28:07 But one thing that I really wanna zero in on is something that I thought was really interesting. We talk about it all the time at Riverside that

28:15 a lot of people have these events and it's beginning and ending at the ~

28:21 at in in the hour long that the event happens. But there's so much that you could be doing after the event's wrapped up.

28:27 Like, not even just with posts. Like you can take your event, run the transcript through

28:32 through ChatGPT or Claude or even just like, you know, run the transcript by yourself and say, okay, these are the top insights.

28:39 Send that in a newsletter. Maybe you put that up as a blog. Maybe you put the top five insights that you learn as a carousel post.

28:46 Like we we you could even make like an entire month's worth of content out of just one webinar, just like you can with your podcast episodes,

28:55 by the way. So if you're just having a ~ like If you're just having your session and it ends and then you're letting that content

29:05 kind of lie, you're you're leaving a lot on the cutting room floor. So definitely wanted to just put that out there.

29:10 Hundred percent. And then I wanna we have a few great questions in the chat. So Mark Gates had asked off the bat,

29:19 I was told LinkedIn is for businesses only, not personal. You disagree?

29:24 I definitely disagree. Sorry, my headphones have just died. Can you still hear me okay? Yes. Yes, we could hear you.

29:30 Okay, good. No, LinkedIn is popping for personal pages right now. Personal pages are performing better than company pages.

29:38 And I think now, if you're interested in starting to post on LinkedIn, now is like the perfect time. I think something like th only three percent

29:47 of people who use the platform are actually posting there. and So that's a lot of opportunity to take up.

29:53 There's lot of space to fill, a lot of niches to discover and create. and we're also finding that you know founder pages and employee pages

30:02 are doing a much better job of like really expanding reach and getting people interested and building that trust.

30:07 ~ and it's becoming like a really solid part of LinkedIn strategy is to have real people sharing about your brand in addition to the company page.

30:14 So if you're not looking into that or leaning into it, I definitely worth the 2026.

30:20 I mean, I heard a lot I've actually spoken a lot about this with creators about like social media was not made for brands.

30:27 You remember like when Facebook was first introduced, they they didn't want ads or brands in it at all in the beginning.

30:32 And that's because personalities, people really will shine through. So yeah, a lot of the time actually bit like people will perform much better than

30:42 than brands and businesses on social media. So definitely something to ~ keep in mind. Yeah.

30:49 Then ~ somebody had written, Adrian, who wrote, I worry about diluting my own brand when promoting

30:57 for my clients. So is that, Adrian, let me let us know. Is that like you saying that if you're promoting events that

31:05 you're doing for other clients, you don't want to dilute your brand? Like tell us a little bit more what you mean by that. We'd love to get to that one. ~ so we had this question,

31:15 I believe, twice. One of them's from Fiona. After webinar, what's the ideal time frame for marketers to repurpose

31:21 the content immediately after, ~ within a week or something else?

31:27 I find as soon as you can. But you don't want to lose that momentum and especially if like there's a lot of people that maybe weren't able to make

31:33 it to the live event. ~ it doesn't have to be kind of a super polished like video

31:40 ~ recap of everything the next day, 'cause that's not always realistic, but like a quick recap carousel or some our favorite ~ questions in

31:47 the chat from yesterday's webinar. You know, anything you can share like off right off the bat,

31:52 ~ I think You know, it's gonna help and it's gonna keep that momentum going for you.

31:57 Absolutely. ~ we have does it make sense to pre promote

32:03 a closed slash private event where you just have a guests where you just have guests but really nice speakers.

32:11 Pre for mo clo the question's gone. Could you repeat that before me? No, there we go. does it make sense to pre promote a closed private event?

32:17 ~ like I think yeah, that's a great that's a that's a great thing to promote. You want people to be able to sign up,

32:23 whether that's private or whether that's public. Yeah, definitely. And also I think having that sense of FOMO is never a bad thing.

32:30 Like showing maybe people didn't manage to sign up to like this event or they didn't get an invite, but they see,

32:37 wow, that that sounds really cool, maybe for the next one they want to get an invite or they'll try harder to get invite over to the next one or they'll,

32:43 you know, want to be part of that community. And also it's like still giving you visibility of the kind of

32:48 the cool conversations that you're you're facilitating, the people that you're working with. I think it's still

32:53 worth sharing to your wide audience 'cause it's still visibility for your brand, I will say. Absolutely. I mean, and also exclusivity sells in a way.

33:00 Like we like I remember at a at an old job that I had had, we found that if you make the button to sign up RSVP,

33:07 we got lower signups than if you make the button save your spot or save your seat. Because people want to feel like they're kind of saving a seat rather than just

33:12 Mm hmm. Exclusive. Special. everyone's invited. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. ~ we have from Nathan,

33:20 is it bad to post the same content across all platforms you're on? I don't think so. I know this is like a a hot topic and a lot of people

33:28 say that it's a bad thing. ~ I don't think so. If you think it's still gonna be relevant to your audience that you have there,

33:35 why not? Obviously if you're just kind of blanket posting the same thing everywhere without really considering it, then maybe that might not be performing super well.

33:42 but as long as you're making sure that the individual content is kind of ~ optimized for that platform and then also optimized for the people that you're

33:50 speaking to there and what they're looking for on that platform. then I think why not? Even just like a simple ~ adjustment to the hook

33:58 or to the format. ~ you can still repurpose the same message and the same idea on different platforms and I I wouldn't shy away from,

34:06 ~ you know, posting the same thing on different platforms. ~ it's just about making a few tiny tweaks if necessary.

34:13 Yeah, also I know that some platforms will prioritize if you make those tweaks on their platforms. So like for Instagram, Exactly.

34:19 if you are posting a graphic, but then you maybe put some text from Instagram

34:24 on top of it. They want you, these these platforms want you to be using their editing tools, want you to be using their overlays,

34:30 whatever that is. So ~ it I think I think helps. I don't have any scientific proof. But actually, speaking of that,

34:36 Mm-hmm. Jess had written, ~ wait, seems like there we go.

34:42 Seems like some platforms deprioritize posts with links that takes users off the platform. I've heard this too.

34:48 I've been posting a short clip and then the full episode in the comments is that best practice. So yes,

34:55 big hot topic, links to include them, to not to put them in the comment, Yes. to say ~ right here and I'll DM you.

35:02 What do you what do you recommend? I've been having this conversation ever since I started in social, it's always a hot topic. I I actually read recently someone from LinkedIn saying

35:08 Yeah. that they don't deprioritize posts with links in them in the caption.

35:16 ~ whether that's true, I don't know. Can we believe what LinkedIn say? ~ but honestly I would prioritize accessibility and ease of signing

35:25 up over that maybe X percent amount of extra reach that you might get. I think it's more important that the people that see it are able to find

35:32 the link because you know sometimes if you leave the link in the comments, LinkedIn will hide it. Unless you put like the most recent and you have Yes. Yes, I've seen that also.

35:38 to go through all the way back to the bottom, you might not be able to find it and then you might lose a sign up. and I think that's more detrimental than like the extra percent reach that

35:47 you might get from not including that link. so I'm linked in caption, but I know that not everyone will agree.

35:54 No, I I I that's it's it's smart because you're right that they do bury some of the cat some of the comments.

36:00 So I'm with you on that. That people just need to be able to find that link. ~ I've tried like sometimes it'll be it, Mm-hmm.

36:06 like I'll say, Hey, write a comment here and I'll send you the link. But then lately I've found with LinkedIn and also with Facebook that they've started

36:14 to limit messages. I think that it's like a battle against spam. Yeah. Yeah, definitely is a battle against spam,

36:20 but it's like it it's it's harder to really get Get your link out there because that's what I used to do and I loved it. But now, now that's not that's not so easy.

36:29 ~ we have from Kimberly thoughts on sharing your content to your business page first

36:35 and then reposting, or just going straight to your own page. I like to I say because pr pro like personal pages perform better,

36:44 I like when brands repost their employees posting about it. But let me know what you think. the same I was gonna say exactly the same thing. really? Twins.

36:50 I think I yes. I mean I would post it at them at the same time. ~ you know try and really make it a moment,

36:57 build that momentum, get try and get everyone posting on the same day with the announcement at least. ~ and yeah I would repost the personal page to the business page.

37:05 ~ I see I did post about this today on LinkedIn actually. I see the business page as kind of like the the landing page,

37:12 like the central hub of the brand on LinkedIn. Whereas the personal pages are kind of more optimized for like really spreading that

37:18 reach a bit wider. So, you know, if someone lands on the company page and they see, you know, posts from people, posts from the brand,

37:25 it makes it feel like more of like a, you know, a lived in, active, dynamic brand.

37:31 ~ that's just my opinion. so yeah, I I would post it on both at the same time.

37:36 You know, if if it's on the personal page and you're hosting, we'll lean into that, add that personal kind of angle to the post.

37:42 yeah, do both. Why not? We also have, ~ Christine had asked,

37:49 this is a long one, so I'll read the whole thing on the side. For our podcast, we're trying to get more feedback from listeners,

37:55 people watching on YouTube. On every show, we ask people to give their feedback. We do posts and polls asking people to give thoughts on topics and we don't

38:03 get a lot of social media participation. Are there any tips that you would give to promote audience participation

38:10 on social media? Yeah, if you're it'd be interesting to know which platforms you're looking

38:16 to get this participation on. Like on YouTube is always a bit harder I find

38:21 to get people commenting unless there's already comments in the comment section, people will kind of avoid it. ~ but if it's on LinkedIn,

38:28 I think polls can be great or if you're on LinkedIn kind of like we said earlier, sharing some screenshots of previous messages,

38:36 as the content can like encourage a bit more conversation. ~ if you're really on X and Instagram.

38:41 On X and on Instagram she had written. Sorry. Okay. X I personally don't use,

38:47 so I can't speak too much to X. ~ but Instagram, I know Instagram do polls, Instagram stories are great for collecting feedback because it feels

38:54 a little bit more anonymous. I think sometimes part is part with getting people to start leaving comments is that it feels a bit intimidating if you've

39:01 got like an empty comment section in front of you. ~ whereas stories you can have people like anonymous anonymously respond

39:08 or vote in a poll. one thing that I just wanted to say from this is that I know that they're like one of the things you were saying about like the intimidation of going into

39:15 an empty chat. Like if you it's gonna sound lame, but it works. If you have people that like your friends or your family,

39:23 like Ask them to just like leave one comment on something to just like weigh

39:28 Yeah. in and be like, I loved the part where you talked about this. It really helps other people jump in.

39:34 No one, it's like going to like a event or like a meetup. Like nobody wants to be the first person to introduce themselves.

39:40 But once they do that, like it's it's much easier. So it's a little bit of a cheat, but having somebody come in and just give their answer is is really,

39:50 I found very, very helpful. Yeah, I do the same thing with employees, like as part of your employee advocacy program,

39:57 not just like encouraging them to post, but get them to comment on your post, get them to start the conversation,

40:03 get the ball rolling. 'Cause if you see other people engaging and commenting, you're much more likely to want to like join in.

40:08 So yeah, friends, family, employees, Absolutely. whoever you can manipulate into starting the conversation.

40:14 Absolutely. So, what is the optimal lead time for initiating event promotion

40:21 efforts? When would you start promoting an event? Ooh, I guess it depends a lot of time.

40:28 I that's a really annoying answer. ~ I always try and give myself at least two weeks. Like any less than that, and you're just not really gonna have enough time

40:37 to build up or enough time to, you know, try different messages and different posts and different content types

40:42 to get those sign ups that you want. I think, you know, it often it depends a lot of the time on is it paid or is it free?

40:52 Is it like an all day online conference you're doing or is it just like one off session or community workshop?

41:00 you know, how many people are you coordinating? Have you got like a full panel of people? Or is it just kind of like a one on one session that we're doing today?

41:07 If it's a full panel of people and you're trying to get them to post about it as well, that's not a lot of time if you've just got like a week or

41:14 two weeks of run and time to get them all posting and sharing that they're commenting. So I think think about, you know, all the things that you want to be able to say before the event.

41:23 ~ how much time can you realistically do that in? Because you also don't want to be posting just about the event for like

41:29 two weeks straight. so make sure you can space things out evenly as well, like every few days instead of every day.

41:36 ~ so yeah, it really depends what That was actually the next question, which is ~ what does you recommend for timing when you're spacing out teaser posts?

41:44 Yeah, I think you don't wanna like annoy people. You don't want them to get sick of the same topic, especially if it's not super relevant to them,

41:50 right? You know, not everyone's gonna be interested in every topic that you cover. So I'd say at least a couple of days between each other.

41:57 ~ try and make sure that you're not like kind of shoving it down people's throats. because then they might just kind of get as much together.

42:04 But then at the same time, don't leave too much space in between them all because I think we forget that not everyone sees everything that you post.

42:11 ~ so you know, if you just do one post before the event, someone might have missed it completely and not even realized that that

42:18 was happening. So make sure that you're showing up regularly enough about the event. ~ but

42:23 Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So speaking of kind of this timing,

42:30 Megan had asked with live events on LinkedIn, ~ one pre-posting, how to engage with LinkedIn events,

42:37 is that outside of people that were invited or attending? And then two, how long should LinkedIn ~ events stay active and online after

42:42 Yeah. the event?

42:49 Ooh, I don't have a lot of experience with live events. I've done a few here and there. I think in terms of pre-posting,

42:56 was it hard to get people to ~ engage with the event page was the question. ~

43:01 without yeah. Megan, let us know because it says pre-posting how to engage with LinkedIn events that is outside of people that were invited

43:09 or attending. Let us know what you mean by that. I'll go on to the next question just while we get some more explanation here.

43:14 Yeah. Mike had asked, ~ we have an audience with a broad age demographic,

43:20 ages twenties to seventies. Have you found an efficient way to promote? Where Gen X is on TikTok,

43:27 Millennials are on Instagram, Boomers on Facebook, is ~ and there's LinkedIn X, Substack,

43:33 Blue Sky, et cetera. What are your recommendations? Well, that's a very wide age bracket,

43:39 I guess. I would love to know are you just focusing on age bracket or age bracket or is there like a specific,

43:45 you know, niche that you're focusing on? What what's the thing that's tying all these people together?

43:51 ~ I think when it comes to trying to generalize with the platforms, like it's very easy to think, you'll just find Gen Z on TikTok

44:00 and there's just these people on LinkedIn but sometimes I think that's oversimplifying things and there's like a lot of

44:06 change when it comes to the industry that you're in and where people are going for certain topics and information.

44:12 So I would really if you want to fully understand where to find your audience, I no one can give you a general answer.

44:18 You really need to kind of dig into the analytics that you have on your platform and see, you know, what is the breakdown of who's following me or what

44:24 is the breakdown of people who are engaging with this kind of content that I want to post. I think it's much more important to kind of focus

44:31 on that than trying to find someone who'll be like, yes, everyone on this platform wants

44:36 this because no one can say that for your specific brand or your specific niche. So really spend time thinking about not just the age range of like

44:46 who you're talking to but also their interests. What are they coming to that platform for? You know, I think a lot of people you might say it's just people over

44:53 30 on LinkedIn but you know LinkedIn is also about people who are coming there to advance their careers, to learn more about like how to do their job,

45:03 to connect with peers and professionals to find a job. You know, it's there's different motivations that you'll have for each platform.

45:10 Like maybe on TikTok it's more about kind of lifestyle, it's more about ~ relatability,

45:16 it's about you know being entertained. So think also about what your audience is looking for on those platforms

45:22 and not just kind of like the generic age groups that they might be in.

45:28 Are there speaking of channels, Whitney had asked, are there any paid channels that you think are worth the money?

45:33 I'm an or I'm an organic girly. I think whenever I've tried to do paid promotion, maybe you can speak more to this kind of 'cause I know the Riverside

45:41 ~ do paid promotions and things. ~ found that LinkedIn just never really worked to be honest.

45:47 Like we would put so much money into that trying to get sign ups ~ and just never really saw much reward.

45:53 We found there was a lot more ~ benefit from doing, you know, more of the cross channel posting,

45:59 like employees, hosts, speakers, everything like that. We found that we got a lot more out of really putting

46:06 all of our efforts into getting those to post or even like paying some influencers or creators to if they were coming along to the event to get them to promote

46:14 it as well. Our money was better placed there than ads. But yeah, I'd be interested to know if other people have had different experiences with paid ads.

46:21 Yeah, I was actually going to say that I mean, I'm on the organic team within Riverside, so I don't have all of the insights on on paid and boosting and all of that.

46:29 But I will say is that I think that we are standing at a point where like we have our own ~ audiences. So if you don't have an audience,

46:36 I do think that there are some great I do think that there are some really great

46:42 tools that you can use on Meta and on LinkedIn to be able to like target different people. So I would say, I mean, even putting like a little bit of money behind like

46:50 a Instagram, Facebook ~ ad type of thing, boosting that post, I think could help if you're starting from not having

46:58 a large audience or that your guest doesn't have a large audience, because you wanted to get in front of new people.

47:04 So there's there's Na Nathan had said thoughts on paid meta ads.

47:10 So yeah, I think I mean I haven't done myself for like my own content, a paid meta ad.

47:15 But I do know that there's so much targeting that you you could do. You could write exactly who you're kind of aiming for. So I do think that that could be an interesting channel for trying

47:22 to grow your audience, get in front of people that aren't exactly following you. LinkedIn is interesting because I love how their algorithm like brings

47:32 up people that I don't follow and will show people commenting on different posts. And I I think that like discovery is just really,

47:38 really good on LinkedIn. So ~ yeah, I mean I would if you're trying to

47:45 invest in that promotion. I would try out seeing if fate like do it putting a a little bit of money behind ~ Facebook and Instagram kind of meta posting

47:55 and targeting and seeing if that will help you. And that's if you are having trouble kind of finding your people,

48:01 it'll it'll help you find them. So now we have a few more questions.

48:11 ~ so here's one. One of the challenges is that I do six plus podcast episodes

48:16 a month and often just as many webcasts. I worry about flooding my feed all of the time.

48:22 That I will say, and Amy, you could jump into here, that's what a content calendar is for.

48:28 We added one just now to Riverside. I'm kidding. But that is what a content planner is for. So being able to say, okay, I'll do

48:35 Two posts a week. And this to like here and here they're gonna be about the webinar. Here and here they're gonna be wrapping up the the podcast.

48:42 And an inch if like a thing to do for that is that people, you're right, they don't want to follow they don't wanna follow just like

48:51 a promotional page. Instead, like why can't you promote your event by talking about cool insights from your last event?

48:58 Like make sure and so when you're talking about flooding the zone, you can't really I don't think you could flood the zone with like

49:04 Too many insightful, impactful posts. If you're writing every day, tune into my next episode here,

49:10 come to my event here. Yes, that is too much. But if you're like turning those events into insights,

49:17 I think that you have lot more room. And then I also just want to say, Amy, thank you so much for joining and sharing all of this.

49:22 I'm really excited. There are a lot of things that I even want to start doing in Riverside for events. So really cool to be able to hear all of

49:30 the cool things that you could be doing with events and to also hear how you could be using Riverside and ~ like kind of extending your events after

49:39 you've recorded them. So creating social posts out of your transcripts, out of your chats, really cool to hear about all of that.

49:45 ~ Thank you all so much to everyone who tuned in live, to everyone who's watching afterwards.

49:51 Our next community. ~ yay! For everyone who stayed late. Sure. We've got the puppy. We by popular demand,

49:58 we've got the puppy. Yeah, Have to make up for it somehow. yeah, yeah. That's it's you know,

50:03 if it's gonna be quiet on your mic, you might as well just like take advantage of that and lift up a dog, you know? ~ I don't have one in my studio with me,

50:11 but for next time, our next workshop is actually Going to be about how your brand can leverage podcasting as a way

50:18 to really drive business to your brand. So if you're a coach, if you're using podcasting as an extension of your business,

50:26 definitely tune into that one. I'll be sending a link out as well as the replay. But to all of you who tuned in live and all of you who are watching,

50:33 and Amy, thank you so, so much for tuning in. I hope you learned a lot from the session.

50:39 And Amy, Stick with me 'cause I'll we'll do a little recap in the in the backstage.

50:44 So thank you all. Have a great rest of your day and ~ see you at the next session.

50:49 Can't wait to see what you create after all these insights and learnings here. So bye everyone. Thank you.