5 Digital Marketing Trends Every Event Organiser Needs To Know

There are some major changes reshaping the online world that could affect how event marketers communicate with their attendees.

We give you the lowdown on the top 5 digital marketing trends you need to know about.

1. Google’s ‘Mobilegeddon’

In April, Google changed its algorithm to favour mobile responsive websites in their search results delivered on smartphones and other mobile devices, and now Bing has announced it will be following suit.

Why you need to know

If your event website or ticketing platform is not mobile-friendly you could see your traffic seriously drop off. According to a comScore report, 60% of all online traffic now comes from mobile devices, so it’s more important than ever to be visible.

There have already been some high profile losers, including Walmart whose mobile search visibility decreased by 31% and the Financial Times, which lost 25% visibility. Click here to see more winners and losers.

Some factors that Google and Bing consider to not be mobile friendly include small buttons and links, text that can’t be read, the need to scroll horizontally, and plugins that don’t work on the device being used.

To check your website take Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. Simply paste your website’s URL into the form and Google will show you how it sees your page and why it passed or failed.

If you’re using Eventbrite to promote and mange your events, there’s no need to worry. Eventbrite is beautifully mobile-friendly for a great user experience on any device.

2. Facebook’s News Feed algorithm update

Facebook has changed its News Feed algorithm to tip the emphasis back towards content posted by users’ friends and away from that posted by publishers and brands.

It is a U-turn away from an initiative launched early last year, which encouraged users to like the pages of publishers, such as CNN and BBC, and subsequently filled-up their feeds with current affairs stories.

It was designed to compete with Twitter’s news reporting abilities. However, according to the platform, feedback from users shows they’re concerned about missing important updates from friends they care about.

In addition, the algorithm change further narrows posts displayed by de-prioritising the often-irrelevant stories shown because a friend has liked or commented on them.

Why you need to know

The more Facebook narrows the 1,500-odd posts that an average user could see each day to the 300 or so that actually appear in their feed, the more likely businesses and brands are to be squeezed out.

The organic reach of corporate users has been in decline for some time and this is a further blow. The change means that unless you pay for an ad, only a very small percentage of people who have liked your page are likely to see your updates in their feed.

Although those users who are actively engaged with your brand should continue to see your posts, Facebook does admit: “in some cases, post reach and referral traffic could potentially decline.”

Event organisers who rely on Facebook for promoting their events may need to think about paying to boost their posts’ reach.

3. Twitter’s new retweet comment functionality

Twitter is rolling out a long-overdue update to its retweet functionality allowing users more flexibility to comment on the tweets they want to share with followers.

The ‘retweet with comment’ option enables users to embed an original tweet within their own message and then comment on it in up to 116 characters.

Why you need to know

Previously, it was not possible to add a comment to a retweet shared via the in-built retweet button. Instead, users had to do a ‘manual retweet’, editing the original message down and including their own commentary in a brand new post – all in the 140-character limit.

As well as being both time consuming and frustrating, this method sometimes makes it harder for marketers to track the sharing of their content, since the originator’s Twitter handle is often discarded in a bid to reduce character count.

Now, you can keep better tabs on the sharing of your content, easily collect people’s comments and add your own voice when sharing other people’s content. Explaining why it’s relevant to your audience will add value and increase engagement.

4. Launch of the Apple Watch

Apple finally launched its much-anticipated smart watch on April 24, delivered by post to customers who had pre-ordered.

The Apple Watch is designed as a companion to the iPhone, with content streamed from one device to the other, but it can be used independently with limited features.

The wearable gadget comes with 8GB of storage, enabling you to carry music and pictures on your wrist, while you can also send and receive messages and mail, make quick calls, post Facebook updates, track fitness metrics, ask Siri questions and check-in to flights via Passbook. Oh, you can also tell the time too!

Why you need to know

According to analysts, 19 million Apple Watches will be sold this year, while a further 31 million will appear on people’s wrists in 2016.

It won’t be too long until attendees are wearing them to your events and looking for ways to use them. If you supply an event app for your attendees, you’ll need to start thinking about how this could work on a 38mm screen.

According to its makers, the Apple Watch is all about quick interactions. So quick, that it suggests skipping words altogether and sending animated emojis instead. Will the event invitation of the future simply be a champagne glass and smiley face?

5. LinkedIn’s publishing feature

LinkedIn’s Pulse publishing platform was launched in 2012, but was at first an exclusive club for 500 specially selected experts. Now it has been opened up to all 230 million of its English-speaking users.

More than a million long-form posts have been published on LinkedIn to date, and authors add an average of 50,000 more articles each week. Posts are categorised by algorithms to give users relevant daily news and opinions on their professions. This means publishers can reach a different and potentially much bigger audience than just their connections on LinkedIn.

Why you need to know

Pulse is both a blog and a social network, so it offers authors the opportunity to reach a wide potential audience as well as allowing for specialised targeting.

Publishing on LinkedIn, as opposed to your company blog, means you don’t need to do as much of the promotional legwork to get it read. If your post strikes a chord it could get viewed and shared by thousands (or even millions) of people.

However, bear in mind that it’s the quality of conversations that sets LinkedIn apart. What you publish here is attached to your professional profile and will come under scrutiny, so the quality needs to be high.

Conclusion

Digital marketing trends are moving faster than ever, throwing up opportunities and challenges for event marketers on a regular basis.

Make sure you don’t get left behind when it comes to digital developments, and boost the effectiveness of your event marketing strategy, by subscribing to the Eventbrite blog for regular weekly updates like this!

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