Don’t just post gala photos on Facebook after the event. Leverage social media to make your gala bigger and better.

Incorporating social media into events is nothing new. Think back to the ALS Association and how their Ice Bucket Challenge took over the internet. This year’s version of that is Red Nose Day. These campaigns use people’s obsession with selfies to their advantage: Leveraging the vanity of others makes for good marketing as long as you include hashtags. Large nonprofit organizations have social media teams, camera crews, and extra funding for promotion. The average nonprofit organization may have one or two people in charge of social media, a photographer, and an extensive list of things to do outside of social promotion.

But even a small, overworked staff can generate interest in their organization by generating buzz on social media.  Doing so is free event promotion and puts the nonprofit steps ahead of peer organizations who aren’t social media savvy. It may even make those who didn’t take part get jealous. The last reason may be slightly petty, but those same people may decide to join in next year. Nonprofit galas and award shows have a variety of attendees, but your audience is not just the attendees. The people who see your coverage on social channels may not buy a seat for the event, but they’ll know the organization and may donate on their own.

A common event for nonprofit organizations is a fashion show. Let’s see how that could be covered using social media.

Before the Event

I like to call this the heavy-lifting phase for the social media manager. The Red Rooster Foundation, which does not actually exist, is having its Annual Fashion Show. On their invitations, they added “#RRFfashion” to let people know that the event is social. The hashtag is unique, simple, and short ,which is what you should aim for when creating one. Using your hashtag, begin promoting your event with social media blasts across all of your organization’s channels. Each detail about the event can be a post to social media, while using the event hashtag.

To publicize the Red Rooster Foundation’s Annual Fashion Show even further, I would reach out to local community outlets, fashion blogs, and other relevant platforms to create awareness and propose stories. The reach-out phase, is a good opportunity to schedule photo opportunities during the show.

To attract a younger demographic, I’d make it a live tweeting event and would provide special seating for those who join in or record videos because some people may not want to participate in the social media aspect of the event or sit next to people who are. It is also a best practice to know what social media channels people are using and which are best suited for event coverage.

Twitter is one of the best platforms for covering an event on social media. People live-tweet award shows, sporting events, and news all the time. If the fashion show attendees tweet under a unique, specific hashtag for your event, you can search Twitter for the top or most recent results for that hashtag and collect them for later use. While I believe Twitter to be the best option for live event coverage, you don’t have to limit yourself to only one platform. Options include, but aren’t limited to Vine, Periscope, and Facebook. Vine is a good option for micro video posts and tagging. Periscope is a free app exclusively for live streaming and allows you to stream the whole event. The stream can be shared instantly with Twitter. Facebook is a good general option because it is somewhat of a default social media channel for people if they’re not on Twitter.

A few days before the event, send a few reminders to your followers that you’ll be covering your fashion show on social media. Some users may not want their feeds flooded with posts about an event they’re not attending. Users can mute your account without unfollowing; it’s basically a kind version of “shut up.”

During the Event

The people who are attending will be doing most of the work from here. Your preparation is what led up to this moment. You can do several things to promote the event while enjoying the show. Take pictures, record snippets of video, tag people in posts, and monitor feeds. Your event will most likely have an emcee, who should know the hashtag and announce it.

When tweeting about the event from your organization’s account, don’t speak as the institution, be personal. Respond quickly to dialogue, monitor your mentions, and know what social media channels attendees are using or ask them to stick to a specific one.

After the Event

Don’t get comfortable, your work is not over. Leverage your user-generated content! Whether it’s a blog post, a video, or a Storify story from collected tweets, push the content to keep the event going even after it has concluded. Use social media scheduling software to upload posts across all of your social media channels. Schedule posts at consistent times about your fashion show with your created hashtag for the event.

Create a private Twitter list of those who interacted and tweeted about the event; you can do this by going to the links where the follower count and tweets are and click on “lists.” Thank those people for attending and build those relationships so they look forward to coming to your next event.

Event coverage using social media is free, fun, and a lot of work. However, it’s rewarding and surprisingly effective.

By Jade McCall,  Digital Strategist at Red Rooster Group.