Social Media & The #Zim Achievers Awards - Live tweeting & blogging (#Zimbabwe)
The event season for Zimbos kicks off this Saturday with the awesome looking Zim Achievers Awards at the prestigious Mermaid Theatre in central London an event we are helping market. This is really an event you ought to attend as it highlights and showcases everything great about being Zimbabwean as we reward our high achieving Zimbabweans. I for one will have my best tuxedo on and am looking forward to network with likeminded people from my own community.
Something important I would like to discuss as we enter this great event season which goes all the way to September it seems. This is the idea of LIVE BlOGGING.
Live social media coverage of your events, shows, conferences, workshops and other off line activities by using Twitter and event blog has become an integral part of event management. An organization simply cannot afford to not have the event covered online. Below are some relevant points related to live blogging and live tweeting your event. I am hoping we will see a lot of businesses involved with the awards or just attending take up this idea of live blogging/tweeting/facebooking.
Why is LIVE BLOGGING important?
· Constant updates about your event via blog, Twitter and Facebook means more web content, more search engine attention.
· If the event is a prolonged event like 2-3 days there are great opportunities of forming online fan communities around the event. These fans can give a viral effect to your events, on the web the more people mention the name of your event the better it is. If 10 fans are talking about the event they will automatically engage their followers into the conversation. On Twitter fans can exchange their reactions and feedback and that would prompt other people who were not following the event coverage to start to follow. So in other words for the Zim Awards start tweeting now.
· Two strangers might be able to connect with each other if both are following your event updates and this would an emotional connect with your brand.
Tools to use: There are many tools that can be used. Most common are, Twitter, Co-Tweet, Cover It Live, pre-decided event blog, YouTube, Flickr, Slide Share, Facebook and your blog.
· On Twitter you should always pre decide a hash tag relevant for the event and ensure that all updates carry that tag. Ask followers to use the tag in all their conversations. If enough people use the tag it might become a trending topic which means it would be able to grab attention of millions of Twitter users.
· Live blogging should be done on an event blog. Event blog usually should have pre event coverage, live blogging and post event coverage. Live blogging must have interesting photos and videos.
· Post photos and videos on Flickr and YouTube respectively and link them to the event blog. This way you will be able to bring traffic from these other sources. Sometimes a picture can work as a great crowd puller.
· If the event is a conference and there are presentations or .pdf documents that can be shared, upload them on Slide Share.
There are many more big and small tricks and tips of live blogging and social media coverage in our kitties. If you are about to organize an event, don’t forget to contact us, or better yet get your ticket for the awards on Saturday and dig us up for a chat. You can get your tickets at www.zimachievers.com.



