How to Engage your Social Community with Pop-up Events

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Pop-up events offer brands a wealth of benefits. They’re a cost-effective way of boosting sales and brand awareness without breaking the bank. Plus, short-term leases mean you can set up shop for an affordable price without the risks of longer-term contracts. This means smaller online businesses can enjoy the benefits of offline retail with ease. But pop-ups are also superb for engaging your customers with your brand. They make for exciting events that are perfect for social media, with Instagrammable set pieces and interesting content. With Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas is just around the corner, now is the perfect time to engage your social community with pop-up events. Here’s how.

Embrace Seasonality and Capitalize on Footfall

Pop-up events and seasonality go hand-in-hand. During certain seasonal events, such as Black Friday / Cyber Monday (BFCM) or Christmas, foot traffic for offline retailers shoots up. This is an opportunity to capitalize on this increased footfall, with pop-up events as the method to do so. In the run-up to BFCM, invite your social community to an offline event that showcases all the products you’ll be discounting. This gives your followers a chance to sample potential purchases beforehand, locking them into your brand and ensuring they’ll go straight to your online store when BFCM arrives.

Step Up Your Hashtag Strategy

Hashtags are essential for engaging your social community. They bind all content together and get it noticed by the right people. Create a branded hashtag and create a competition to get it circulating in the weeks and months leading up to your event. For instance, your followers could submit some UGC accompanied by your hashtag to be in with a chance to win free tickets or another prize. Complement this with a concerted hashtag strategy for your pre-event content. Conduct thorough research into relevant hashtags around your industry. Identify those that your target audience are likely to engage with and use them throughout your pop-up promotional content online.

Get Savvy with Your Pop-up Monetization Strategy

While pop-up events are an effective engagement channel for your brand, you’d be remiss if you didn’t monetize it in some way. Indeed, pop-up shops are ideal for ecommerce brands, even for beginner DIY stores. With such concentrated footfall, especially during seasonal events, and engaged individuals, pop-up events are ripe for a sales uplift. Instead of putting all your products on sale, select only your best-selling items and sell them during your pop-up event. This saves you time, money, and valuable space and increases sales into the bargain. Accompany this with free samples and product samples (where applicable). This engages new customers with your products while increasing your value as an expert in your industry.

Engage with Customers in Person for Deeper Connections

While social media is vital for nurturing relationships between your brand and your customers, it’s no replacement for simple face-to-face contact. Genuine offline engagement translates into long-lasting online relationships. Speak to your attendees during your event. Get to know them, their interests, their motivation for attending, what they like about your brand, and so on. Have a sincere conversation with them — human contact encourages engagement better than digital ever could. Beyond fostering a deeper connection between your followers and your brand, speaking to attendees provides you with an opportunity to conduct some boots-on-the-ground customer research too.

Look to Influencers for Social Proof-led Engagement

Influencers offer brands an array of benefits all-year-round, from increasing sales through sponsored posts to boosting brand awareness. But with pop-ups, their benefits extend to the offline world. Transform your pop-up into an influencer-led event in its own right. Q&A sessions, informative talks, product samples — these all make for engaging activities at influencer-led events. You could even set up a photo booth (with props) to encourage your attendees to snap and share your event online. Naturally, your influencer can also boost awareness of your event in the run-up to it too. Create a sustained teaser campaign with your influencer that drip-feeds information about your event, starting small and first and ramping up output as the event draws closer. This builds hype and drives engagement with your pop-up event through an intense, drawn-out campaign.

Launching a pop-up can be a challenge, especially for first-timers. But when it comes to engaging your community and boosting your brand, it’s an endeavour well worth pursuing. Follow the tips above and create a stellar event that will resonate with your social community.

Kayleigh Alexandra

kayleigh@microstartups.org | +1 (408) 457-9552

[/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line”][recent_posts style=”slider” category=”social-media-strategy” order=”DESC” orderby=”date” blog_remove_post_author=”true” blog_remove_post_comment_number=”true” posts_per_page=”3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]