How Live Events Help Your Business Get Seen
Let's get one thing straight...
Your business can't exist if no one knows about it.
To be honest, the biggest struggle that most entrepreneurs face is the inability to reach out to current and new audiences in a way that's consistent and manageable. If you're on social media, you'll know that you need to be posting every day, creating stories a few times a day, and posting on Facebook or tweeting regularly.
It can be overwhelming at first, especially if you're trying to do it on your own. But today, I created a video for you that shows you how live events are so good for getting your business seen in a way that is WAY more effective AND quicker than just a weekly blog post, some social media strategy, and sending a newsletter once in a while.
1. You get a platform to tell your story.
The best part about hosting a live events is that, when you're up in front of your audience, you have 100% control over the narrative of your story AND you have the ability to clarify any pieces of the story that people may want to question.
Compare that to other mediums (for example, a live video), people are semi-engaged, maybe they're watching it later on, maybe they're watching it while doing three other things...it's not the same as having someone's undivided attention for a prolonged period of time.
That attention that you're getting at a live event allows you to shape the narrative that you want to create, the story that you want to tell. This is a HUGE positive, because it leads to people understanding who you are, the WHY behind your business, and ultimately leads to them feeling like they can trust you in a much shorter period of time than through social media or online.
2. They leverage other peoples' networks and audiences.
Events help your business get seen ESPECIALLY if you don't have much of an audience, because they help introduce you to new audiences in a few ways.
a. If you partner with a venue or another content provider, you get access to their audience. Then, they don't have to create content and you don't have to worry about not having an audience to teach to.
b. If you create a social media plan on-site at the event and encourage people to share with their audiences, you'll get the added benefit of your attendees leveraging their social media platforms to talk about attending your event and you'll create more buzz and more community around the event itself and events in the future. Social media helps create transparency into what events are like and if you can help your attendees get excited to promote your event, you'll create a waitlist of future prospective attendees.
c. Events are social by nature, so by encouraging people to bring a friend (or add a +1) you'll be essentially doubling your impact by asking your attendees to help grow your community by leveraging theirs.
3. They combine many different ways of interacting with your audience.
One unique thing about events is that they allow you to interact with your audience in a way that no other promotional effort does - by allowing you to facilitate a conversation, or host a networking-style of event, or teach a workshop, or conduct an interview. Events can literally have hundreds of different formats, which each allow you to engage with your guests in a different way, depending on your goals. If you want to be seen as a great coach, do some "laser-coaching" sessions at your event. Want to get to know a lot of people? Host a networking event and make time to say hello to every new person who walks in the door.
4. You can get instant feedback about your audience AND their understanding of what you do.
Events are great for feedback because you get a visual, real-time assessment of how well you're doing as a host or a teacher. If people are scrolling on their phones and not paying attention, you'll have to change it up to keep people engaged. If people are laughing and talking to each other, asking a ton of questions, and generally engaging with each other, you know that your event is producing results for your attendees.