At a casual event, people say hello and various greetings to other guests, and if available, eat the tasty food, swallow the soda or enjoy the liquor, hobble with other guests and then eat some more food again, dance the through the night, lastly thank the hosts and leave.

Attending an event is all about showing up, enjoying the entertainment and food, and leaving.

Using social media, in a similar way, is all about logging in, being entertained, and then logging out.

But “social media marketing” is quite different from using social media.

Here I will clearly explain the basics of social media marketing to understand the difference between hosting the “social media event” and just showing up.

I will now talk about how you can use social media to build your brand, promote the visibility of yourself or your company, product or service.

Social Media Marketing is organising a 24/7 event but online.

There are three ways to clarify what social media marketing is like organizing an event.

1. Invitations are actually promotions

A great event needs great guests, and the first step to getting guests is identifying an attendee list and sending out invitations. Your social media marketing requires you to identify your target audience and brainstorm how to make them “appear” on your social media page through tactics such as sending emails, cross-posting from your Facebook to your Twitter or your LinkedIn to your blog, advertisements or even using “real world” personal invites like “Hello, follow us on Twitter to get coupons and insider deals.”

Social media marketing requires having a promotional strategy.

2. Food, drink, recreational activities are actually the content of your social media marketing

You can serve food according to the attendees – North Indian, South Indian, Mughlai, Mexican, Chinese, Continental or just snacks. Your event can have a band, a magician, a comedian or music.

Likewise, for your social media marketing, people can “hang out” on your Facebook page or YouTube channel. They can learn something. Or they can just have fun.

Social media marketing requires a content marketing strategy, a way to systematically produce tasty content such as blog posts, infographics, images, videos, that people will enjoy enough to hang out on your social media page or channel.

3. Hosting the event actually opens the doors for future events

As your event host, you’ll “hang out” at the event, but while the guests are busy enjoying themselves, you’ll be busy meeting and greeting, making sure everything runs smoothly, and other behind-the-scenes tasks. Likewise, in your social media marketing, you will be coordinating content, interacting with guests, and even overseeing the event to kick out rude or obnoxious attendees.

Social media marketing requires ongoing behind-the-scenes management, often on a daily basis, to make sure everything runs smoothly, right down to dealing with “rude” guests.

You have to think like an event scrutiniser. Before organizing your event, you should attend other critical meetings – noting what you like and dislike, what you want to imitate, and even contact the magicians, bands and bartenders to find out what they cost and possibly hire for your own event.

It is important to attend other events

You should attend other events and make a list of likes and dislikes, ideas and dos and nots, and use that information to systematically plan your own event.

That is why as a social media marketer you have to attend the events of other brands online. Identify brands according to your need and keep a critical eye on what they do. Write down your likes and dislikes and reverse engineer what other marketers are up to. And do the same for yourself.

For your first to-do list, identify some brands or public figures you admire and follow them on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Start by making a list of what you like and dislike, based on reverse engineering their online marketing strategy.

How to do that:

1. Log in to one of your social media accounts (eg Twitter or Facebook).

2. Search for keywords that are relevant to your business using the search function. For example, if you’re a wedding planner, search for keywords like “wedding planning” or “weddings” or “event planners.”

3. Note or bookmark accounts you find. If you search for ‘burgers’ and you find the Palo Alto restaurant’s Facebook page, ‘The Counter’, ‘like’ that page on Facebook and/or bookmark it. You need a list of five to ten companies that are similar to yours and/or that you can see doing a good job on the platform. Repeat it for all of their social media accouts.

4. Start taking stock of your likes and dislikes about how they run their social media efforts. For Facebook, for example, do you like their cover photo (that is, the long rectangular photo or video at the top of a brand’s Facebook page)? Why or why not? Do you like their profile picture (that is, the square smaller picture that appears in posts on the page)? What about the items they post – text, photos, videos – and/or the “themes” of their content? Imagine attending their event not “to have fun”, but to “reverse engineer” how they stage it. What works? What not? Write this on a spreadsheet or document.

We’ll come back to this process for each platform, but whether you’re an experienced social media participant or not, start thinking of social media as “events” and start stepping back and thinking about what’s going on on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., as the work of “event organizers” interacting with “event attendees”.

Identify your purpose and track its fulfillment

Once you’ve identified the purpose of your event, you can split it into two parts:

• Build brand equity among the target customers, giving them a warm and vague feeling that they “like” the brand so much that they will have a favorable propensity to buy the product and/or service; and/or –

• Get a sale by selling the product or service locally. Or, a few steps before the sale, a goal might be to get an email newsletter signup, or a sales lead/registration of a free eBook or software download offer, etc. The “goal” of social media marketing might be to “acquiring sales leads” in the form of names, company names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc., in exchange for “something free” such as a software download, free eBook, or free consultation.

Whether subtle or aggressive about it (act now and get 50% discount if you follow us on Telegram), the purpose of social media events is not same as a family event. Brands want something from their visitors: better brand equity  which bring in warm and fuzzy feelings ultimately lead to more sales.

If you’re starting to pay attention to competitors and brands that seem to be “getting” social media, I want you to be a little cynical and look for the goals behind their events with specific purpose on social media platforms.

Find and reverse engineer companies to emulate

Your first task is to go on social media platforms and to identify companies that fascinate you. You can like or follow them and start thinking about their social media marketing as if you were attending their event. Look for the ‘purpose’ behind their events and how they combine this ‘purpose’ in their content marketing strategy.

There are two types of businesses that you need to identify:

1. Companies You Need to Copy From

Identify major brands that may not be in your industry but are making good use of social media. Many major consumer brands like Wendy’s, Chipotle, Target, REI, Martha Stewart or even Shaun T are crushing it on social media.

These are companies that, while not necessarily like yours, are the superstars of social media.

2. Companies You Compete With

Search by keyword or content topics relevant to your business on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to identify competitors who are similar to you. Take your “real world” contest, visit their website and track down their social accounts. These competitors are companies similar to yours.

You can’t do social media in a vacuum. You cannot look at a blank canvas or a blank screen. It’s “social” media – which means paying attention to companies you want to emulate, competitors, your own customers, industry, etc. Imitate what works well. “Steel” and “reverse engineer” the strategies of companies and competitors to emulate.

Be successful. Enjoy yourself.