The following is first of 30 businesses that will be featured in this online training series about 30 Ways In 30 Days For 30 Business Women Events With Social Media Success Series to include before, during and after event experience presented by Brenda Leguisamo of Social Biz Members.
#1 of 30 Event Review
Business:
Mari Smith – Leading Social Media Strategist
Author, The New Relationship Marketing
Coauthor, Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day
Connect on Social Media with Mari:
Website/blog: http://marismith.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/marismith
Twitter: http://twitter.com/marismith
Google+: http://marismith.com/google+
Date: Wednesday, June 4, 2013 (Announce to public on May 6, 2013. One month before event.)
Event Title(s): Free 10 Proven Ways To Improve Your Facebook Reach blog post PLUS invitation to a free Facebook Marketing webinar: 7 Steps To Facebook Success.
Number of Attendees (Participants): 13,000
Location: Online Webinar Event
Twitter hashtag for event: #7stepfb
Sponsored By: Infusionsoft and GroSocial
I will share the flow on conversion before, during and after the event using myself as an example where I attended the event. I provide recommendations to help increase engagement for more attendance and sales.
Before the event:
I noticed on my Facebook newsfeed a sponsored post with a photo promoting Mari Smith’s free blog article about Proven Ways To Improve Your Facebook Reach blog post PLUS invitation to a free Facebook Marketing webinar. I immediately noticed and was excited to see Mari used an event marketing strategy I suggested on a recent blog post I shared about The 3 “A” Step System For Live Event With Social Media Success. I am not saying Mari used this strategy because she read my blog. It was great to see we both see value in offering free gifts to customers and potential customers that include call to actions to other programs and/or events that will eventually lead to sales. I registered and decided to help spread the word for both Mari’s gift as well as leverage the opportunity to re-post recent gift that I created with blog post. I’m learning more and more each day to leverage as much as possible to create win-win success opportunities.
As soon as registered to attend event, there was an opportunity share the event using a social share feature integrated on the invitation. Goodness is contagious. I was grateful for the gift received by Mari and it only took me less than a minute to spread the goodness forward to others to also experience receiving the gift.
Facebook Cover Photo
Facebook cover had event information, but I notice the cover was created on May 15 and not on May 6 when the event was announced.
100 people liked the cover photo, there were 8 shares and almost 30 comments. These are great results, but imagine how much more engagement would result by updating cover photo as soon as event announced to take advantage of those 9 extra days to market event on Facebook.
The event was also posted on Google Plus on May 27, 2013. There were 49 Plus 1’s, 12 shares and 9 comments. If this post were published on May 6 when event announcement launch, there could have been more increased exposure with opportunity for more interaction during the 21 days between May 6 and 27.
During The Event:
I received an email reminder about an hour before the event started and I clicked on link provided which directed me to the screen where webinar would take place. I noticed there was a social share feature at the bottom and only about 20 people had made a comment. This was an opportunity for me to make a comment for two reasons: 1. Increase my exposure with Mari and others also on webinar and 2. Help spread the word for Mari since there was an hour still left before the webinar began.
Mari Smith Presents
The presentation started well and then as expected sometimes with technology, there appeared to be a delay. Overall the presentation was fantastic and Mari always has great energy. A quick summary of the 7 steps are: 1. Plan, 2. Compelling Brand, 3. Content Strategy, 4. Target Fans, 5. Engage, 6. Ask 4 Sale, and 7. Track and Tweak. Feel free to see the full free training below with value added content shared by Mari.
I noticed the Facebook social integration was no longer available at bottom of screen event though states to post questions or comments below the screen. Not sure if omitting the Facebook social feature that was intentional, but would have been great if was included to help attract more participants to register for event.
Twitter Engagement With Questions and Answers – Several Book Giveaways
I used TweetChat.com to join the event conversation on Twitter as it simplifies when I tweet so I don’t need to also type in the event hashtag #7stepfb. The system does it for me automatically. You sign in to TweetChat with your Twitter account.
There were questions provided by guests and Mari gifted about four (4) of her books. This is a great way for her to increase exposure for more book sales. The event was trending on Twitter too.
Brenda Creates Twitter List With Mari Smith Event Guests
In this case, I decided to create a public Twitter List with Mari Smith event guests to include business women so we continue the Facebook and social media conversation, learn from each other and potentially do business together too. The women on the list are also high potential attendees to my monthly Social Biz Members Insider Events hosted both live in South Florida and free Global stream online for business women. They may also be interested in receiving free social media for women event training programs I create.
Important: If you create a public or private list, make sure the people you are adding are real as I noticed some people were spamming random links or simply marketing themselves and not adding value to the conversation. If people are only posting information about themselves and not having conversations (interacting) with others on social media, then may be more difficult to truly develop a relationship because there’s so focused on themselves. A business transaction is a two way agreement, not a one way conversation. Also, for me it is important to connect with people who are interested in engaging on social media. If a person is on social media and not interacting with others, then why are they on a social media network? It is to every business person’s advantage to be as active as possible on social media so people get to know you and begin to build trust so referral and sales opportunities are made.
Mari Makes Offer Of New Program
After Mari welcomed event attendees, she expressed was going to reveal a new program starting soon. She then made program offer towards the end of the webinar presentation which is a program that dives deeper than what was shared on the free webinar setting. I enjoyed the way the offer was positioned and made by Mari. The offer was made for $197 in a single or two-part payments. Mari is expecting her biggest participation from this course. The program was offered 18 months ago at same price and had 1,300 participants. I calculated total sales was $256,100. Three participant names of the first 101 fast action buyers, will randomly be selected to get a free social media critique by Mari. This is awesome!
Mari is a passionate online business coach and also offered another program called VIP Masterclass Optional Upgrade exclusive for 100 people only for $997.
After Event
Thank you tweet then email from Mari Smith.
Social Reach
According to the Tweet Binder data about the event #7stepfb Twitter activity, I notice there were 644 contributors tweeting during event. Mari’s event had 13,000 participants. This means that only 5% of them were tweeting. Even though the potential reach was over 2 million Twitter accounts (Where some Twitter accounts are know to not be truly active with purchasing power), I believe there would have been much more social engagement and exposure during event if Facebook social integration was available at bottom of the webinar screen. I suggest this especially due both Mari’s specialty and webinar being about Facebook.
Received YouTube Notification About Replay
Benefit of being Subscriber to YouTube Channels is you get notified via email when videos are published and fist to know.
The Replay Of Mari’s Free Webinar
Available on the internet via four areas from what I could determine.
1. Mari’s YouTube Channel
[youtube http://youtu.be/ZdPQIgIeueU]
2. Thank you message from Mari Smith includes link to replay page.
3. The photo on Facebook with links to 10 Proven Ways To Improve Your Facebook Reach blog post has a link at bottom to the free Facebook Marketing webinar: 7 Steps To Facebook Success.
The banner for free webinar is visible, but I suggest to update details removing the Tuesday, June 4, 2013 date and indicate free replay webinar available for 7 Steps To Facebook Success.
4. Website home page. It currently displays June4, 2013 event details and I suggest to update banner that indicates free replay available.
Banner for Webinar
It’s great there are not dates on replay of webinar for evergreen marketing purposes.
Just in case, evergreen is an internet marketing term I learned for when one creates program that are created once and can be used over and over again. It is important to keep in mind that with social media and with any industry trends, systems and strategies are continuously being innovated. This is great because enables more creative juices to flow and opportunity to create more new programs for customers.
Thank to Mari Smith again for sharing free Facebook wisdom!
I hope this was helpful to you. Feel free to let me know what you think with comments. Share with other’s who you think will also benefit from this post. Thank you!
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Brenda Leguisamo, MBA 
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