In the first blog post on how facebook can be used effectively for event planning we covered using facebook to market your event, creating an event on facebook, what and when to post on the wall and we started to look at promoting your event. In this post I am going to cover sharing your page, facebook ads and live check-ins.

Sharing Your Page

You should promote your facebook page in the usual way - through your email signature, blog posts, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. However there are other ways in which you can try and increase your page's reach by sharing your page. By posting a link to your event page on other facebook pages and groups you can start to promote your event to a wide audience. However it is worth nothing that it is best if you engage in these pages/groups first before promoting your event and only add your link if it is relevant and useful to the followers of that group. Try not to be over salesy when promoting your page or your post could come across as spammy. Outline what your event is and why you think people from that particular Facebook group will find it interesting and relevant.

Remember not all Facebook groups will allow you to promote your event, ensure you carefully create and craft your message before you post it. You may need to explain what the event is, why it's relevant to that group and when they can find out more about the event.

Facebook Adverts

 Promoting our event page via Facebook adverts can be effective, if you have quite detailed information into the kind of delegate you are targeting, Faebook adverts can help you access these groups of people. Their adverts will allow you to specify:

• Age range
• Typical interests
• Gender
• Geographical location
• Language
• Likes and interests
• Connection targeting (target people who are friends with your connections)
• Birthday
• Relationship status

You can use Facebook adverts to promote your Facebook event page or link it to the actual event website. However, research carried out has shown that adverts are more successful if they promote a Facebook event page - as people like to stay within the Facebook platform.

Live Check-In's

Facebook have recently launches a new live check-in facility. This works in a similar way to Foursqaure and Facebook Places, to the "Attending" guest list of the event. When someone arrives at your event, they can check-in using their smartphone. When they do check-in this update is included in the Newsfeed of their friends - again giving your event additional exposure that you might not normally get. You can actively encourage people to do this by including it in presentations and marketing material through the actual event.

Enabling event check-in's insires delegates to RSVP and check in more often. It will also draw attention to eents that are in progress and give event managersanother way to guage success. Users don't need to have RSVP'd to an event to check-in, they just need to be within close proximity whilst the event is going on. Friends can be tagged (as in the normal Places check-in feature) and anyone checked-in is automatically added to the "Attending guest list of the event.

Event managers and organisations that run events are not just using Facebook but all social networking platforms, if you would like more information on event management & social media, email our events team and request our free ebook events@evocos.com or call us and discuss your requirements on 0800 3698677.

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 A recent survey showed that event maangers are using social media as a way to plan and promote their events more often that not. Event management can be a complicated, time consuming and difficult activity, and any tools that aid this process are a welcome relief to a typical event manager.

Social media is described as a category of websites that are based on user participation and user generated contant. Examples of social media sites are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as blogs and forums that have user generated content such as Amazon customer reviews.

Many event management software solutions come with the ability to integrate with your existing social media channels. Being able to update your Facebook page without having to leave your event management software package is a great timesaver. But why are Facebook, Twiter and other social media channels becoming such a popular tool for event managers?

Event Planning - Skype & Google Docs

Before your prospective delegates are even aware of your event, event organisers can se social media as part of the planning process.

Skype - is a piece of software that allows individuals and business to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Using Skype can be a great way to keep in touch with event partners and those aiding in the management of the event. Using video conferencing to hold meetings is not only more cost effective than face to face meetings, ut has also shown to be a faster way of conducting brainstorming sessions and meetings compared to plain telephone conferencing.

Google Docs - All those involved in the planning of the event can also be given access to a set of Google Docs. Google Docs are known as "collaborative documents" and are hosted on "the cloud" meaning that the original document is stored online. Anyone with login details can access and amend the original document - meaning that organisers will always be able to access the most up to date and current plan or calendar.

Come back next week and read our second extract taken from our Social Media & Event Management  which will cover Event Planning - LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook

If you would like to download our free ebook then please email us and request the ebook, providing your name, company name and whether you are currently lookin for an event software solution; events@evocos.com

 For the majority of event planners events are seen as a very useful marketing tool. They are used to produce new business leads, foster relationships, educate and generate brand awareness. However no event can be successful without the right delegates attending. The need to generate a return on investment from the events they run whilst ensuring they host an event which attracts a high volume of quality delegates is no easy task!

One area of growth within the events industry is the use of online event management software. Event managers are embracing this type of technology more and more as it provides event managers with a full end to end management tool, helping them to organise everything from venue selection, delegate management, event marketing, invoicing/payment and follow up surveys.

Most event managers are nore sure what to expect from their event software, what should it do? What benefits will it offer me? How will I justify the initial cost outlay? Below is a list of 10 things your event management solution should do and will hopefully provide you with a little more insight when you make the decision to invest. 

1. Increase delegate attendance through seamless online booking journey
2. Enhance communication - branded & personalised invitations through to communicating through delegates preferred method of communication
3. Seamless journey for your delegates due to automation of all event processes
4. Measure performance metrics of your event - Provide a clear ROI - improved reporting stats
5. Ensure you provide a clear and effective event message
6. Enhance your event marketing through personalised communication
7. Integrates into your internal business applications to enhance your overall business strategy
8. Understand your delegates better through an online event survey
9. Increase efficiency of your events through total automation
10. Ensure your event is a success

As online event software continues to grow and become an integral part of maanging, planning and running an event, it is crucial that you fully understand what it is an event solution can actually do for you as an organisation.

If you would like to see how an event management solution works then please contact us on 0800 3698677 or complete our form

More and more businesses who run events are looking for a way to be that little bit more efficient for less cost, the old adage, do more for less and better for less. Improving your levels of efficiency and increasing the value of your events are two primary drivers that help distinguish a successful events company from one that is struggling. So whatever type of events you run, whether it is multiple events weekly, internal corporate meetings, training, staff development, incentives or annual conferences it is imperative that your organisation and event operates at maximum efficiency and giving your delegates a high quality experience.

Have you considered giving some of the power back to your delegates? By allowing your delegates to manage some of their own event experience you are making them feeling in control and have ownership and involvement with the event process. One way to do this is to implement and use an event software which includes a self service event portal. A self service portal can be used in a variety of ways, but for the events industry, this portal would be used to take registrations online and to give delegates a profile or account so they are able to manage their details and event experiences themselves.

By implementing a self service portal your delegates can register online and they can manage their contact information, dietary requirements, event history, selection of courses, accreditation requirement, purchase of relevant event merchandise and more. It will also allow your delegates to view upcoming events and choose whether this is something they are interrested in attending. Most people have a preferred method of communication and an online self service portal will allow delegates to select their preferred method so they can receive updates on the events that are not only relevant to them but also sent via a method of their choice.

As the service portal is online delegates can access their profile and information 24/7 and from any location, making this extremely convenient to your delegates, this can only mean that your delegates will have control and are more likely to register ensuring they provide themselves with a smoother and less stressful registration experience. Also if your delegate is able to register via your official event website this gives them a familiar, trusted view, whilst providing them access to their own branded portal.

 By simply handing over the reigns to their own event portal means hat many jobs that the event manager would have managed is now in the hands of the delegate. Meaning that many of the communications between the event manage and the delegate can be removed, saving the event manager time and allowing them to work on more strategic tasks.

You can avoid the inevitable bottlenecks associated with event management by introducing a self sevice portal. Many delegates might learn about an event over the weekend and will have to wait until Monday morning before they can call the event company to register their interest or attendance. This can lead to sudden peaks in demand on a Monday morning which can be tough to control and manage and this can often lead to mistakes trying to juggle numerous tasks and coping with an unrealistic workload. However if you provide a way for your delegates to register via the internet this eans that the bottlenecks can be avoided.

A further key benefit to the event managers of the self service portal is that it allows them to access their dlegate information from one central location/platform. Making it that much easier to create reports, download data ad create delegate badges and custom event packs.

The self service portal can be integrated into your organisation's CRM system, this means that any amendments made by the delegates themselves to their contact information are automatically updated/populated (in real time) into the CRM. This means that your records are always clean, accurate and up to date.

Most self service portals, such as evocos', are more often than not supplied as part of an event software solution. These solutions include a host of event tools such as email marketing, invitation maanagement, online registration/microsite management, integrated surveys, reporting tools and more.

Contact the evocos team to learn more about our online self service portal, simply click here.

Meet Ella, she’s a happy, motivated event manager. Her company organises over 30 large conferences and exhibitions every year. A lot of these are annual, but many are one off events. Either way, Ella is able to organise them with ease, control and efficiency.

Ella’s company recently installed evocos event software to help manage their events. evocos lets them create branded microsites or web pages to take bookings and payment online (via a secure payment portal). These come with custom forms so Ella can make sure she requests all the information she needs from delegates, which often changes from event to event. She is able to select a targeted list of delegates from her CRM system and can send a branded, personalised email invitation to them. evocos also sends out automatic email reminders, confirmations and event updates (saving Ella huge amounts of time!). Delegates can click on a link on the email which takes them to the microsite or webpage. Since evocos is integrated with Ella’s CRM and finance system, their CRM record is automatically updated when they register, and the finance system is automatically updated to recognise that payment has been made – receipts (or invoices if required) are automatically sent out (saving both Ella and the finance department huge amounts of time!).

For certain events, Ella can create a delegate self service portal – this means that delegates can log in and manage their own profile – updating their own contact details, event requirements and more. This saves Ella a huge amount of time, and provides additional value to her delegates. They can specify how they’d like to receive their event communication, can request to attend certain presentations, and can also make event related purchases online. Since this portal is online, they can access this 24/7 from any location.

Ella doesn’t need to rely on spreadsheets to manage her events. All the information is automatically populated in evocos. The Resource Management module lets her control everything from the venue booking, supplier management, equipment and more. She can even give access to her suppliers and sponsors so they can log in and view information that pertains to them (such as delegate numbers and their dietary requirements). This cuts the amount of communication Ella needs to make to her suppliers, and vastly reduces the amount of mistakes made. Speakers and presenters can also log in and upload their presentations, abstracts and bios. Having all this information in one area makes it a lot easier to manage and control.

Ella’s company is planning to organise a large conference where they will match up suppliers and delegates for custom 1-2-1 meetings. There will be hundreds of individual meetings and Ella needs to match these up and allocate meeting rooms/spaces. The suppliers can add weightings to their delegate choices, and Ella needs to make sure the Gold suppliers receive all their top three meeting requests. There’s a lot to take into account and this is something that could take a lot of time and effort.

However, since Ella uses evocos, she isn’t worried! She can select the suppliers and delegates from the evocos database (or from her CRM), can add the rules she needs to adhere to (such as the Gold supplier meeting getting priority), add her meeting rooms/spaces and click ‘Go’. Five minutes later she’s presented with a list of meetings. She can manually override certain meetings if she wants – changing their times and locations, or if she’s not happy with this first version, she can save it, and run evocos another time. If she prefers the second version of meeting she can save and select this one. Alternatively version 1 is still available if she wants.

As the event is drawing closer, Ella decides to print off the delegate badges. She’s also going to add barcodes so that can track delegates on the day with ease. She goes to the Badge & Barcode module in evocos, selects the event she’s working on and processes and prints the badges. Since evocos is an online solution, she can also access this module on the day and print of the badges at the event if she needs.

During the event, Ella can access all of the information relating to her event. In the run up to the event, she’s been communicating with delegates via social networking sites. She set up a dedicated Twitter and Facebook account and has been updating delegates with event information via that. Using evocos, she can access and update all her social accounts from one central platform. On the day of the event, she’s been using it to communicate last minute changes, popular presentation topics and more. She’s been getting lots of direct messages from delegates at the event and she’s able to respond to all of these using evocos.

Once the event is over, evocos automatically sends out a delegate survey. This email directs people to an online survey form, which is linked to evocos. Ella waits for her delegates to complete these and then runs a set of standard reports to help her understand the performance of her event. At a click of a mouse she can drill down to the detail she needs and can pass this information onto senior management. If needed, she can create bespoke reports – not all her events are the same and sometimes she need to understand a particular occurrence or trend.

Since a lot of the tedious, manual tasks are now automated and managed by evocos, Ella is able to focus on more strategic tasks. She’s been able to identify how they could improve their events to provide more value to delegates.  She’s also been able to negotiate better supplier contracts, saving the company vast sums each year. They’ve seen a steady increase in delegate attendance, and they’re getting more repeat business than ever.

Ella is a motivated, happy event manager. Her company is thriving, even though many in their industry are struggling. The evocos event software solution has already paid for itself many times over, and they have extensive growth plans for the future. With the improved visibility, control and efficiency they’re able to understand where their company should expand and how it can make its move to greater market share.

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Meet Ella. She’s an event manager for a busy event management company. Her company organises over 30 large conferences and exhibitions every year. A lot of these are annual, but many are one off events. Either way, they all take a lot of time and money to organise.

Ella’s company is quite traditional in the way they manage their events. They use a mix of direct mail and email to promote their events and take the majority of their bookings via a form on their website, via emails, from people completing forms and posting them in or via telephone. Many of the events require payment and Ella has to do this manually over the phone for each delegate.

Ella relies heavily on spreadsheets. Each event has multiple spreadsheets, all with many tabs. These help her manage the delegate list, their contact details, dietary requirements, payment details, travel arrangements and more. Ella regularly gets sent on training courses to help boost her spreadsheet skills – however, no amount of training can help reduce the number of spreadsheets she uses! They seem to grow and grow...

A lot of Ella’s time is spent transferring data from one medium to another – mostly into her spreadsheets. The bookings via postal form need to be manually entered, the emails

she gets from the online booking forms need to be manually entered, as does the information she takes via the phone when taking bookings. This manual data entry takes a long time, and errors often happen. As well as entering data into her spreadsheets, she also has to log into their CRM system to update their customer records when they register for an event, and send an email to the finance department to let them know the delegate has paid (or not as sometimes is the case – which then requires Ella to chase the delegate and update the finance department with the latest information).

One of the jobs Ella dreads is the printing of all the delegate badges. She needs to extract the information from her spreadsheets and paste it all into her badge template she’s created in her Microsoft Word programme. This is such a long and tedious job – and most of the time it never prints properly first time round! There are many days where Ella feels like throwing her printer out the window and walking out for good!

Once the badges have finally been sorted and the day of the event arrives (which normally comes which an extremely late night in the office the night before), Ella has to

constantly carry around huge folders full of her printed spreadsheets. It’s difficult to manage and address problems on the day as she can’t get access to all the information she needs. It’s generally pretty stressful.

Once the event is over, Ella’s boss asks her for the delegate feedback. This was done via printed sheets that Ella handed out during the event. She has to quickly type all the

comments and add all the feedback scores into (yet another) spreadsheet. However her boss doesn’t want the raw data; he wants reports and graphs which analysis the ROI (Return On Investment). Ella is trying to do this as best she can, but she’s conscious of another event coming up that she needs to start planning.

All in all, Ella is a pretty stressed event manager. Her bosses aren’t exactly sure what value their events are providing, and they can see they need to find a way to help Ella gain control and visibility over their events. At the same time, they’d quite like to cut their costs by improving efficiency across the whole company. Ella’s complaining she can’t

perform her job to the best of her ability, finance are complaining about lack of visibility with regards to budgets, spending and delegate payments, and they can’t see what events are performing well, and which aren’t.

There’s only one answer – event management software.

Come back next week to see how Ella's life as an event manager has been drastically improved since her company installed evocos event software.

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As an event manager communication is key - you need to communicate prior the event, during the event and after the event. Maintaining that high level of communication is tough for event managers and trying to update your delegates via different mediums such as; website, email, post and telephone takes time and some of the less important updates are not communicated because of the difficulty in managing and updating these mediums. It is imperative that all delegates and those involved with events want to know accurate information and any updates on the event as soon as they happen no matter what communication medium they prefer.

A big concern for an event manager is that a delegate has missed something important due to lack of communication updates and in this day and age delegates are expecting more and more from their events. People and businesses want to be more actively engaged and network with peers and this is the same for the events world, it is no longer enough to come and listen to speakers, delegates want to have the ability to ask questions and comment on presentations as they are being presented.  So how do you, as an event manager, manage, control and encourage the active engagement between delegates in the run up to, during and post the event? Twitter!

BUT how can you use Twitter as an effective communication platform? The first step is to decide what kind of Twitter account to open, if you are organising a large event that runs regularly then it would be best to open an account dedicated to this event. If you are an event company that hosts lots of smaller events, a general corporate account might be better. You would need to brand inline with the event or the event company – a logo or icon should be used as a profile image and a succinct bio should be added. Make sure that the person managing the account understands the medium as if it is neglected or deployed badly, you could come under some negative criticism.

 To ensure effective communication with your delegates, your Twitter campaign needs to commence simultaneously with the initial marketing. If there is a dedicated micro site for the event or page on your website, you need to include the Twitter username and a link to the account.

Over this series of blog posts I will be covering #hashtags, generating a high quality network and what to tweet about. Or if you would like to learn more about events and twitter please download our whitepaper: “Improving communication before, during and after events with Twitter”  or if you would like a demonstration of our event management solution, evocos, then please contact us and request your free demo.

 In the first part of the blog we established that more and more organisations are singing to the same tune, be more efficient with a reduced budget! For organisations that run events this might seem like an impossible ask, however through the implementation of the right event software solution you can start to see your event ROI rising and rising.

In the first part of the blog we covered how the implementation of an online event software solution that included a comprehensive self service portal can have massive efficiency savings for local authorities, in the second part of the blog we will be looking at how an online self service portal can provide efficiency savings and doing more with less from a commercial perspective.

So as an organisation how do you know if your event is efficient? What are the metrics you use to measure whether it has been a success or not? There is no point organising and running an event if you don't know whether it has been a success or not, are you looking to improve efficiency, create more revenue back to your business or to maintain your customers? All of these metrics can be done with face to face marketing which is seen as an extremely effective and also one of the simplest methods to determine whether your event has been a success, it can be also be simplified if you implement and utilise the relevant tools, such as an event software solution with a fully functioning self service portal.  

Having the ability to measure cost per delegate and overall event profitability and then enabling you to present exact projected sales forecast to your organisation is fundamental.  Event software solutions let you to do this and will query your event data making the measurement and reporting process much easier, more cost efficient and less time consuming.

For the commercial event organisation, making use of an online self service portal has a number of transparent efficiency benefits, from clean and up to date data through to improved delegate management. A self service event booking portal will allow the delegate to book online - from the point of booking, to payment, to registering on the day; ensuring the delegates’ journey is quick, painless and error free. Events that are not successful are events that have not been organised efficiently and this will leave the delegates with an unsatisfying experience, resulting in lowered delegate attendance for future events.

If you would like more information on evocos' self service booking portal then please contact the evocos event software team and request a demonstration of our solution.

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Find a venue, make sure it is the right venue, select your target delegate audience, send branded invites, register the delegates, take payment if required, send communication to those registered delegates, schedule speakers, manage workshops, produce badges and barcodes, produce reports...wow...the list goes on and on..but is this sounding all to familiar? Managing a conference is complicated, time consuming and extremely hard work. More and more conference and event managers are starting to use a managed service to handle all these tedious tasks for them leaving them free to get on with the more important areas of managing a conference.

Most conference and event managers will look at an event management company to manage their conference for them, however, these companies still need to utilise the relevant event technology, such as; invitation management tool, microsite builder, online registration, email communication with your delegates and a report writer to analyse your event stats. This all starts to add up in cost and becomes a financial drain and more than likely your budget won't extend to these extras. Here at evocos we did our research and recognised their was a real need from the events market for this kind of service and on the back of this research we have launched an Event and Conference Managed Service to help you manage your conference, minisming cost and increasing efficiency. 

Our conference and event service will do the following for you:

• Affordable flat fee to manage the conference for you
• Design & create a website branded to your corporate specifications
• Liaise with your event & marketing team to ensure correct brand specifications
• Configure & upload your delegate database  
• Send branded e-invites to your known users
• Provide a single click transaction from e-invite to personalised & branded landing page
• Allow your delegates to register online through your website
• Customise your online booking form per event
• Enhance delegate liaison by managing a delegates full day itinerary
• Maintain & manage delegate registration and information
• Send automated delegate booking email confirmations
• Produce customised reports based on your specific event and delegate requirements
• Produce personalised delegate packs tailored specifically to each individual delegate
• Collate and store relevant information and produce delegate badges prior to the event
• Ensure total control over access through production of individual barcode security
• Provide a comprehensive schedule of all one to one meetings, workshops, seminars

The events market is a tough industry and everyone remembers your "last conference or event" so it is crucial that your conference or event is a success. Why don't you call and speak to one of our team to ask for a free demonstration of how our new Managed Conference and Event Support Service will ensure your event is a success at a very competitive and cost effective price.

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In the first part of this blog I covered how selecting the right event software is key if you are looking to integrate with your internal office systems. In this post we will be looking at integration into back office applications.

When you are planning an event all parts of the business need to be informed and kept informed, from selection of the delegates to sending out the invites to them confirming their presence online to receipt of payment. You need to be sure that you document EVERYTHING in all your systems. If you were to integrate your event system into your internal business applications, then it will ensure you offer relevant and update to information and stats on your event, this means that the event manager can make more strategic and sounder financial decisions when setting up future events

It is all good and well telling you that it is beneficial to you to integrate all your internal back office systems, so here are a few clear benefits of doing it:

·         Immediate access to up to date data (event, delegate etc)

·         Reduce administration through automation of many event processes

·         Your event data can be positioned, viewed and analysed from a single location

·         Creates a all inclusive event CRM system

·         Integrates with back office system for authentication on costs/discounts/prices etc and all delegate data

·         Full control over all areas of your event

·         Ensures you have clean and up to date information on your delegates

CRM Integration with your Event Processes
How great would it be if you could have more control over your customer/delegate data and be more efficient and targeted with your event marketing? Well by integrating your in-house CRM with your event software you are able to realise this, meaning that the contact and company details, alongside your event booking and attendance records would be pooled between the two systems allowing for event bookings and event amendments to be made straight from its own contacts records, allowing the CRM user absolute control of customer event interactions.

Finance Integration with your Event Processes
How do you currently manage payment of your events? This is always a tricky one as there can be no room for error. Through integration of your finance application with your event solution will let payment information and details to be passed seamlessly between the two systems. Invoices and credit notes that are directly related to the event and can be created and distributed in either the event system or in your internal finance system, at all times ensuring a seamless and secure payment journey for you and for your delegates.

Event managers have a tough and demanding job but have started to realise that through the integration of their online event software into all their internal business systems, they are able to access critical and relevant data and stats on all areas of the event, this will make it easier for them to make improved strategic and financial decisions when planning events.

For further information on integrating your event software with your internal back office solutions then please contact the evocos team.

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