Creating An Influencer Friendly Event

Get the invitation right

An influencers decision to attend your event starts with the invitation. We should aim to make them feel valued and an integral part of the event. So don’t just bulk send them an email or E-invite, try to personalise as much as possible, through sending a personalised hard copy. Whilst doing this, we recommend to use cycling couriers or at least any other eco friendly courier service. There are plenty of great companies out there (eg. Pedal) – so no excuses.If electronic mail is the only viable alternative, send it from your email address with a personalised messaged and seek to establish a long term relationship. People can really tell if you are using the same email over and over again, so please put some effort into it.

Make it personal

To that end, influencers are compelled to attend events when they feel their presence is both valued and valuable to them as individuals. Handpick your guest list for any event, you will see that your guests are more receptive to attending since they are not part of a mass invite. Everyone’s time is limited, somake your guests feel they made the right choice of attending your event.

Provide incentives

Free stuff doesn’t impress anyone – since it is associated with a near zero value. So no surprise influencers are not particularly flattered when they are offered a bunch of free but useless take-aways. The key here is to offer the “influencer heavy weights” – the ones that make or break the event – some customised add-on incentives. Examples could include dinners, VIP tickets, paying for accommodation and transport or just simply reimbursing hairdresser costs, etc. The goal here is to make the influencer feel like a super V.I.P. celebrity.

Pick the right venue

The venue on a stand-alone basis can be sufficient to have influencers hit or miss your event, as key influencers want to be seen at the coolest and often newest locations around town. An influencer friendly venue is usually an atypical venue that provides amazing instagram pictures. So a venue with loads of different settings is ideal for some amazing Insta shots.

Involve other influencers

Get some A-listed key-influencers to “sponsor” / back your event from the beginning on. An early bird key influencer attendance is likely to spur attendance and attract other influencers. The cool kids, always have and always will be – want to be where the other cool kids are. This counts from high school to exclusive cruises for seniors.

Create visuals and backdrops that look amazing on a 4×4

Most mobiles today have high end cameras on it – especially those of influencers. So when planning and decorating your event, it is key to create a variety of visual opportunities that are well lit and create “Insta-bait” moments by having unique product displays, interactive activities andbackdrops. These “Insta-bait” corners should be scattered throughout the venue to create “an exploratory journey” for the influencer, allowing them to use their style and creativity to shoot what they want, whenever they want. So creating visuals and shareable “moments” that look great in 4×4 pictures is key to maximising influencers engagement on your events live day.

Further Reading:

How to organise a product launch

5 tips make your conference memorable

Featured image: Influencer via unsplash

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