If you are among the ones who understand the importance of a social media plan, you probably already invested in a social media strategy. You are most-likely comfortable executing your plan and things are rather running smoothly. Over the up coming weeks however, your organization is planing a big event and things are about to get busy…really busy!! How will this affect your social media presence?

Not only will you have less time for social media but when you do “find time”, the only thing you will want to talk about if your event!!

This post aims to help you understand how your social media campaigns and your ongoing social media plan fit together.

Social Media Promise

Your ongoing social media presence is your fundamental presence. You can also call this, your social media PROMISE! It is the valuable information and insights that you are promising your followers all year around.  It is what your followers are subscribed to.

It is better to follow through on a small promise than not delivering on a large one. Its tempting to over-promise when things are quiet but you still should keep your action plan small enough that you can execute it during busy times as well.

The main reason we developed the Intermediate Strategy Weekly Schedule to allow a small presence to still keep a balance between Networking, publishing, content sharing etc.  This balance is key in delivering that consistency we hear about.

Social Media Campaign

Ironically, if you a planing a big event and you have less time available, you will need to actually be more active on social media rather then cutting back. Your event deserves extra social media attention and you now need to create a separate campaign, just for that event, with a beginning and an end. There are a number if things that can be done to promote awareness for the campaign, ask your New Media Advisor.  Simple tactics such as changing your Facebook event picture a few times before the event keeps your Facebook attendees on their toes and remind them of the event. You can also use paid ads depending on your budget.  Give your event a long tail by posting photo galleries and tagging people after the event.

Feeding off each other

Your social media campaign should run in parallel to your ongoing social promise and not disrupt it. One of the reasons you want to keep your regular social media presence going during busy times is that special campaigns such as this, increase your traffic and those new visitors need a chance to see what you are all about. If you stop networking or stop sharing valuable content weekly, those new visitors may not be as interested in you and you could be missing out on a great opportunity to grow your network.