SBS Summer Interns Take on Social Media Event Marketing for the Middleton Chamber of Commerce

At Sarah Best Strategy, we believe in helping everyone shine—including our interns! When the opportunity arose to provide social media event marketing with live coverage for the Middleton Chamber of Commerce's Annual Golf Outing, we felt it was the perfect opportunity for our summer interns, Aashna Sheth and Daniel Prohuska. Both are studying Strategic Communications at UW-Madison.

​Here, they share their experience with planning, executing, and evaluating the event social media campaign.

Aashna: The Situation

Daniel and I were excited for the opportunity to work with the Middleton Chamber of Commerce to promote their annual golf networking event on social media and cover the day live! We put together a social media campaign strategy to make sure we met the goals that Kristen Parent, the Program and Events Manager for Middleton Chamber, discussed with us prior to the event. 

These goals included:

• Increasing the Chamber's following on social media; 
  
• Boosting impressions and engagements; and 
  
• Creating a sense of “FOMO” (fear of missing out) for people who were not able to attend, thereby making tickets sell out faster for the event next year. 
  

To achieve these goals, Daniel and I created pre-event promotional posts with the intention of advertising the event and reeling people in to make them want to follow the live posting of the event as it occured. These posts included photos of past golf outings and fun events that would be happening on the day of the event, such as sponsored games and contests that were dotted along the golf course.

The two post examples above demonstrate how we sought to create FOMO—a fear of missing out—and get people excited and engaged. The first is a video we created of golf balls being dropped from the top of a fire truck as part of the annual Golf Ball Drop by the Middleton Chamber of Commerce.

​The second features details for five major events that would occur throughout the day: 1) meeting and networking with other business professionals; 2) celebrating a great day at the 19th Hole Social; 3) participating in exciting hole sponsor activities throughout the course; 4) watching the Fire Truck Golf Ball Drop, and 5) competing to win the Bogey Boogie Golf Trophy!

I learned a lot from creating the posts for this event, especially when it came to mastering how to adopt the specific tone a company uses. The Middleton Chamber of Commerce typically uses a more casual tone with their members, so I focused on creating posts that balanced a casual vibe with useful information in an aesthetically pleasing way. Daniel and I also worked on bringing more variation in color to Middleton Chamber of Commerce's feed, and I think we were definitely able to accomplish that as well.

​Daniel: Challenges and Solutions

My alarm coaxed me from sleep at 4:40 a.m. on the day of the event. Though the event wasn’t set to kick off for another five hours, I had committed myself to capturing a time lapse of the sun rising over the outing’s golf course. I rubbed my eyes and shouldered my tripod, ready to shoot some stunning footage. 

And then Mother Nature interfered. The sky sat heavy with clouds, blocking any chance at a beautiful sunrise. For a moment I considered leaving empty-handed, but I thought better and instead trudged up to the golf course.

Looking back now, I can say that I wouldn’t change a thing about that morning. Though the clouds hid the sun, they also created a solid background on which we edited the event logo. The lesson I took away from that early morning was to remain adaptable, because you never know what an event (or Mother Nature) is going to throw at you. ​

Aashna & Daniel: Outcomes

After the event, we were able to see how well the posts did on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram in terms of engagements and impressions, as well as how many people viewed our content.

• Our Facebook posts received 3,420 impressions and 251 engagements, which were 27.2% and 4.1% increases from the previous week, respectively. 
  
• Instagram posts received 1,517 impressions and 74 engagements, which were 686% and 640% increases from the previous week, respectively. 
  

We used these two metrics most because we felt they would be the best reflection of how FOMO was felt by viewers who were unable to go to the event. Overall, we were able to meet the goals set to us by the Chamber of Commerce, and we are excited to see how the knowledge gained this year will aid in making next year’s event even better!

Hoping to Cover Your Own Live Event?

Planning a social media event marketing campaign to boost ticket sales, keep attendees engaged, and create FOMO among your followers is a highly effective promotion strategy. We can not only help you plan and implement a campaign with social media development and social media management, we can help you determine which type of live event social media strategy will best suit your goals.

​Let us know if we can help you include any of the following at your next event our outing:

• Hashtag content
• Location sharing
• Live photos 
• Real-time posting
• Video streaming

And keep in mind that if you're moving an event online, social media promotion and real-time event coverage can still be part of your marketing campaign!

---

Aashna Sheth (Summer 2021 Intern) is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Strategic Communication, International Studies, Public Policy, and History. She loves writing – especially about politics and culture – and if she's not writing, she's reading.

Daniel Prohuska (Summer 2021 Intern) is a current student studying Journalism (Strategic Communications track) and History at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Daniel relishes any chance to help untold stories reach their intended audience.