We’ve entered the time of year when life becomes all about eating, sleeping, working and attending holiday parties. Parties are still one of the best ways to meet people and expand your network. This goes for hosting as well as attending.
In an earlier time all the host had to worry about was that neither the food nor the drink ran out. But that was before parties started taking place in two places at once – the real world and its Instagram-filtered reflection, the online social media sphere.
Particularly for PR and marketing event planning, nurturing a social media presence for your party, including hashtags, Vine videos and Flickr albums, is less an option than a requirement. Social activations are a great way to tell your audience what your company is all about and build brand awareness with every click.
But nobody likes a party where everyone’s face is glued to their phones. Here are ClutchPR’s suggestions for how to be on social, but not anti-social, at holiday parties.
- Page Activations – This creative activations company offers a variety of fun and cutting edge social activation services to help you brand your party while having fun, such as photo booths which turn your guest into an animated GIF or morph their visage with that of Tailor Swift. The Photogram service turns guests’ Instagram pictures (properly tagged, of course) into professional prints, available for them to take home.
- Don’t hide the Wifi and Hashtag! – Nothing is worse than showing up at a party, the host encouraging you to Tweet, Instagram, Vine, etc., but having no clue what the Wifi password is, or getting confused as to what hashtag you’re expected to use. Don’t hide this info from your guests. Post it on a banner, hand it to them on a note card when they arrive or place frames with the info at key spots around the site (food table, bar, selfie station). They can even provide an ice-breaking conversation starter between guests, as they discuss the cleverness of your hashtag and help each other get online.
- Props and atmosphere – The design and set-up of your event is no longer about simply looking nice. Think of it as the set for a film, one shot on your guests’ smart phones. Shadowy lighting is very romantic, but is death to those without a good flash on their phones. (Best to have a key area with bright lights and a cool background for selfies). And while we’re on the topic of selfies, harness them as yet another way to get your party’s message across with fun photo booth props that are branded with your company or theme. For instance, you can have cut-out speech bubbles with celebratory messages attendees can hold up in their pictures.
Seen any inventive social media techniques at a recent party? Share them with us on Twitter.
