Today we have a guest post from Holly Krenek, the Event and Brand Manager at Affiniscape, Inc. where she focuses on social strategy and brand development. She has over 7 years of experience in social media, event management and interactive marketing. 

To drive great buzz and excitement to the events you plan, incorporating a solid social media marketing plan for each event, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube is a great place to start. However, there has been a new social media craze growing daily called Pinterest, where millions of users pin photos, such as friends’ recipes, outfits, workout ideas and create numerous boards for anyone to view.

Pictures are the new black. If not Instagramed, they are pinned or both! When planning your next event, strategically conceptualize ways to tell a story through the photos. Before jumping on the Pinterest bandwagon, make sure you have a plan of action set in place with an end goal for your event and it’s tie-in to the social tool. What’s the story you want the event to convey on Pinterest?

Here are 5 tips on using Pinterest correctly as an event planner:

1. Increase Awareness and Interest – The ultimate goal for any event planner is to drive traffic to an event, and make sure there is a significant amount of buzz around the event pre, during and after. Place links to the event website on the images you pin on boards to drive traffic back to the event homepage. Also, link pictures to the event social media pages such as Twitter and Facebook so attendees can follow your social sites. Be sure to promote the event Twitter hashtag in your captions to spread the word around your Twitter page, and create a community social sphere at the event through the hashtag. By pinning to one social site and linking to another, you are doubling the amount of people you are reaching at the click of a button!
2. Have an Open Forum- What attendees love most about events today, is the feeling of community. Having social outlets to express their thoughts, learn, and most importantly share all of the above in seconds through numerous social outlets. Attendees should be encouraged to pin to event boards, and also re-pin to spread the knowledge they are learning from the event.
3. Be Organized- Pinterest gives users the option to follow a user, or a user’s individual boards. It’s important to keep in mind when creating boards for an event that each board should be categorized in an organized and relevant matter. Event planners should create boards that appeal to all attendees – categorize them by topics: speakers, agenda, social media, networking, fun images, content, videos, etc.
4. Creativity Goes a Long Way – Remember, photos are the new black. Make your event images stand out from the crowd. A few ideas to incorporate into your visual storytelling are using Instagram, infographics, creative and detailed captions, and videos on boards to capture the attention of your attendees and possible future clients.
5. Think Outside of the Board (Box) – When creating boards, think about what attendees are not looking for that will provide an element of excitement around the event. Have a board for blogs posts by attendees, event staff and speakers. Also create a thought leader corner where each speaker can have his or her own board with their bios, headshots, and session abstracts for fully detailed positioning, making it easy for all attendees to access speaker information. Another unique example is holding a contest – keep attendees guessing clues via images and announce the winner at the end of the event.

Any other tips that you have found useful in creating more interest for your event via Pinterest?