There are tons of great events to attend at any given time in Minneapolis. The local creative industry is especially rich with quality events like Social Media Breakfasts, MNSearch and our own Digital Way Finder series. At these events, wise hosts leverage social media for the benefit of increased, real-time engagement, which makes for a great experience. But just like with any live interaction, sometimes things go wrong. And they can go wrong quickly. Before you jump into real-time marketing for events, you should know the potential risks and how to hedge them.

Real-time marketing at events is hard to control

Just a couple of weeks ago, a few Spyder Trappers attended a Social Media Breakfast on the industry of food blogging. It made us hungry. It also made us realize that one wrong word can derail a live-tweet feed. The audience was actively tweeting along, reacting to the insights of the experienced panel until one person mentioned “food porn.” Unfortunately for the live feed of #SMBMSP77, automated spammers just skipped over the word ‘food’ and focused exclusively on that second more scandalous word. The results were less than ideal.

How engaged in the live-feed (or even the panel) do you think the attendees were after it was flooded with NSFW images? If you answered “not very” then you are correct. A single word derailed an otherwise very good event. That’s how fickle real-time marketing can be. You won’t be able to prepare for everything, but the more planning you do, the less of a chance something like this could happen. Before any event, brainstorm some worst-case scenarios and plan out corrective actions. The best plans allow you to stay away from being reactive, which is rarely as effective as being proactive.

Marketing automation increases risk

There are a lot of reasons to embrace social media automation, one of those being that it can be a very efficient way to distribute content. The problem is that things change and automation hinders your ability to roll with the punches. During an event, automating social posts can be disastrous. Any change to the event’s schedule or logistics could lead to embarrassing disconnects in messaging. While automating your long-term editorial calendar can be helpful, automating event marketing isn’t a good idea. Real-time marketing requires a human touch. It needs someone the business can trust to adapt and make decisions on the fly. The first rule of real-time marketing is to plan. But, there needs to be space made for a trusted person to adapt that plan to fit in the context of the moment.

Tips for effective real-time marketing for events

• Always have a plan
• Make it relevant (to audience and brand)
• Keep it simple
• Regularly monitor event hashtags
• Engage with and listen to other participants
• Use a trusted social media manager

When you’re planning your next event, keep in mind these tips. Social media can greatly enhance the quality of an event as long as it’s done well. Done poorly, you could end up having to recover from a distracting crisis instead of enjoying the event.