Creating content for your Festival or Event can be a daunting task. In this presentation, Susan McNaughton of Susan McNaughton Social Media shares some ideas which may spark more ideas for your Festival or Events committee to create a content planning calendar and share the workload with the team.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA FOR FESTIVALS
Great ideas for creating content for your
Festival or Event

2. NEW FESTIVAL – YEAR 1
 Behind the scenes – who‟s involved, why, what‟s
their interest – ask questions – shoot video?
 Countdown to the Festival – what‟s happening this
week etc
 Who‟s coming to the Festival – mention the names,
suppliers, producers, businesses etc who‟s going to
be involved
 Photographs showing stalls set up at other festivals
 Telephone interviews – write articles
 Find inspiration from magazines

3. SOLVE PEOPLE‟S PROBLEMS
 How to get there?
 When is it on?
 What happens if the weather‟s
bad?
 Where should I park?
 Accommodation nearby?
 Where to eat in the area?
 What do I need to bring?
 Timings for special items – e.g.
demonstrations, workshops
 Ask people what they need to
know via Twitter and Facebook –
then answer questions

4. ASK YOUR PARTICIPANTS
 Why did they choose your event?
 What events have they attended recently?
 Where are they going next?
 What made them start up their business?
 What new products do they have?
 What do they do with their products?
 Who‟s their best customer and why?
 Why do they like attending events?
 What‟s their biggest business challenge?
 How does their product help their customers?

5. ASK YOUR VISITORS
 Recommendations from happy visitors can be used
to publicise next year‟s event
 Criticisms from unhappy visitors can be used to
make next year‟s event better
 Give someone the responsibility of interviewing
visitors
 Create videos where you talk to your visitors
 Take photographs of happy visitors
 Make sure you have permission from them to use
data/ pics/ comments collected

6. LISTEN TO OTHERS & SHARE CONTENT
 Set up lists of people who write well about your
subject
 Use Google Reader to follow blogs or websites (being
closed – create lists? Evernote?)
 Use Google Alerts to find content using key words
 Create interest lists on Facebook and look at them for
content others are sharing
 Create lists on Twitter and go there first for RTs or to
interact
 Comment on articles and use a link to your Event‟s site
to draw people to read what you‟re writing
 Remember to be helpful when doing this, otherwise your
comments may not pass moderation

7. GET OUT AND ABOUT
 Attend trade shows, exhibitions, networking events
 Take photographs
 Ask questions of people you meet
 Write about what you‟ve seen, learnt, discussed
 Record audio clips with your smart phone
 Take a video recorder/ smartphone

8. STAY INDOORS & USE YOUR LISTS
 What‟s stopping you from getting out and about
today? Could be lots of others are indoors because
of this too.
 A couple of examples follow:
 Ask a question
 Share some useful information

9. QUESTIONS Single update via
FB – auto-feed to
 A simple question can work Twitter – creates
conversations

10. SHARE USEFUL INFORMATION

11. SHARE USEFUL INFORMATION (2)

12. SHARING USEFUL INFORMATION (3)

13. SAVE INTERACTIONS AND RE-USE
 Handy tools:
 Google Chrome Browser + Add-on “Awesome Screen
Shot” – can screen print and annotate with arrows, text,
comments
 Make sure you use the „blur‟ tool to blank out names of
individuals who may not want to be shown
 Google Chrome Browser + Add-on “Hootlet for
Hootsuite” – for creating Tweets from browsing
 Save articles you find for later: Evernote Web clipper for
Google Chrome – can also send interesting things by
email
 PicMonkey.com – use to change photographs – add
text, make Facebook banners

14. A NOTEBOOK?
 All the digital ways of organising your content can
leave you baffled – you could just try writing things
in a notebook!
 But remember to take the ideas and add to a plan
at some point…

15. KEEP PLANNING, AND REFINING THE PLAN
 Work out how to get more from a single piece of
content by sharing it in different ways
 E.g. A recipe – could form the basis of an article
 Could be a video
 Could be a series of photographs or a finished dish
 Photo album on Facebook
 Instagram pic
 Board on Pinterest
 Share in groups on Flickr
 Link to Facebook
 Series of Tweets

16. GET BUSY, GET SOCIAL
•Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/SusanMcNaughton
•Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Susan.McNaughton.Social.Media
•Web: http://www.susanmcnaughton.com
•LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/SusanMcNaughton