ABCey Presents: 5 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Your Next Event

Instagram Stories has opened the door to a new range of possibilities for both users and marketers, making it a great space to promote events. Thus, ABCey has created a list of our top 5 ways that you can use Instagram Stories for your next event!

1. Instagram Live Video

Record and show in real-time! You can shoot live video using Instagram Stories before, during, and after your event. This way, you can showcase your venue and promote event transparency. Backstage content is a great way to drive viewership and keep your audience interested. Filming behind the scenes will give users a sense of involvement/understanding of how event planning actaully works.

2. Q&As

Having a Q&A session is a good way to engage your audience. Your followers might have common questions about your event or are interested in knowing more about the event planning process. In this case, you can collect the most popular questions and answer them in a picture or video format on your stories.

3. Advertisement

There are so many ways you can advertise your event using Instagram Stories. You can promote your brand or upcoming event using appropriate hashtags; you can also place your event page link in your stories. There’s also Instagram Stories ads, which allow you to insert a short advert in between users stories. You can target your ads by reach, video views, traffic, conversions, app installs, and brand awareness.

4. Start A Poll

The good thing about Instagram Stories is that it lets you run quick surveys and take your audience’s pulse. Thus, if you have a dilemma while in the midst of planning an event, you can always ask your audience for their thoughts. This is a nice way to engage with your followers and make them feel that you value their opinion!

5. Influencer Takeover

It’s always good to change things up. Consider letting your event speaker, a performer, a sponsor or an influencer take over your account and engage with your audience. By providing a platform for others to push some of their own content, you’ll also be able to leverage the speaker’s own audience and marketing power, and drive impressions for your event.

What do you think of these ideas? Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!

If you’re interested in learning more about events we’ve done for other San Francisco startups or Fortune 500 companies, click here.

Start Up Monday: Double Dutch

Startup Monday is ABCey’s weekly post that features some of the best and brightest companies in the Bay Area. They are often companies that we have our eye on or have worked with in the past & would like to share with friends and followers of ABCey Events!

Today’s Startup Monday post features DoubleDutch, a company that specializes in data-driven mobile technology. They use engagement data from the mobile event app to ensure that each event is better than the previous one. Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District, DoubleDutch features applications for events, conferences, associations, and trade shows worldwide.

We love that this company has all our event essentials covered with their award winning data-driven event app. Having the event agenda, surveys, and attendee networking options all available on one application makes it super easy for us at ABCey to keep up to date with all the latest event logistics!

How it Works: DoubleDutch allows each client to design their app to look exactly how they like. They make it easy to fully customize the branding of the app and easily configure layout. With the mobile agenda option, event participants can access the up-to-date mobile guide at any time and easily create their own personalized agenda with a few simple taps of their mobile device. DoubleDutch can also facilitate both digital and in-person networking. Attendees can connect with others based on interests, professional titles, and more! And to keep attendees engaged and interested, DoubleDutch features a survey and poll option within the app to provide feedback.

Why We Love It: As event professionals, we know last minute content and schedule changes are inevitable. However with DoubleDutch’s content management system, our job becomes a lot less of a headache! Throughout the event, valuable information about attendees’ whereabouts, interests and sentiments is collected. The DoubleDutch CMS allows organizers to see this information in real time and make any necessary adjustments to the event. DoubleDutch also provides concise and specific event analytics so you can identify which sessions, speakers, and exhibitors are buzzing, and which ones need extra attention before it’s too late. Having all of this information and features included in one application makes DoubleDutch a company that we think will definitely have a positive impact on the event industry!

Will you be using DoubleDutch in the future for your next event ?! Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!