From the Experts, Your Event Career
5 Ways to Ramp Up Your Event Planning Business’ Online Presence
Alyssa Perna has over a decade of event operations experience for leading multinational business-to-business conferences, festivals and trade shows, press conferences, large-scale fundraisers, complex social events, and more. She is the founder of Experience Events, the Managing Director of Ingenuity Cleveland, and the lead instructor (and tutor!) for QC’s Corporate Event Planning Course.
If you’re looking for a new hair salon, where do you search for options?
If you’re out of town and looking for a great place to eat dinner, how do you find a great restaurant?
If you need to hire a plumber to fix the leak in your bathtub, where do you go to find the most qualified professional?
The answer is more than likely online. As Bill Gates said, “If your business is not online, then your business will be out of business.” Having a searchable online presence is key to your career success, whether it be promoting your own business or climbing the ladder as an individual contributor. The day of yellow pages is long gone… Even though they still show up at my front door once a year!
Keep reading—I’ll go over why having an online presence is important for your event planning business and give you tips on how to conquer the digital realm!
What is an online presence?
Having an online presence allows you to draw web traffic to a personal or professional brand online (Wikipedia). Having an online presence shows that you’re a reputable industry expert. It allows you to showcase your expert skills and experience by sharing photos and videos of your work. When searching for an individual or a business, your name should come up in the results. Is it happening?
Why is online presence important?
We live in the age of information, most of which is found online today. Having an online presence increases the visibility of your skills and experience to your audience and allows you to build clout – a way of measuring how influential you are online.
Being searched and found online is essential towards being successful in the event industry today. After all, we showcase our abilities through visual aids like photos or videos as part of our portfolios. When your clients conduct a search on you, you want to make a great first impression. Prove that you are a skillful, well-trained event industry leader through your online platforms.
How do I increase my online presence?
Boosting your online presence isn’t as difficult as you think. Below is a list you can work through to help you increase our online presence and become more visible in the planning industry.
Get on social media
Make sure you have social media profiles set up from Facebook to LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more. From there, you should join relevant professional groups and online communities where you can engage with your audience and cultivate rapport with your peers. Be sure to comment, like, share and engage in conversations – networking is key to career growth!
Create a website
There is no better way to drive web traffic than to create a website or a landing page that bring eyes to your work. In today’s digital age, there are so many great tools that make designing a website easy, from Wix to Squarespace, Weebly, WordPress and more. One of the great aspects of the internet is that you can find free tutorials online to help you get started.
Set up a blog or vlog
If you prefer being behind the scenes and letting your work speak for itself, consider blogging about your event experiences. If you prefer being in the limelight, why not vlog or produce webinars? If you choose to blog or vlog, be consistent and provide quality content to create value for your audience. Share and showcase photos or videos of your work. Blogging or vlogging is also a great marketing tool and you never know if one of your videos could become viral – or at least viral within the industry!
Invest in SEO tools or paid ads
SEO or search engine optimization affects the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results – often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results (Wikipedia). You should incorporate key terms and words that your audience may search for in your online posts. Say you’re a wedding industry expert who’s blogging about a “Fairytale Garden Wedding”. Incorporate the same phrase when writing your blog or sharing it on social media, your website, etc. This will help produce more organic views of your pages.
Once you’re searchable online, consider investing in some paid ads. They’re surprisingly affordable at a few hundred dollars each.
Don’t forget to keep it clean!
Make sure that your searchable online presence is professionally clean! If I google your name, I shouldn’t find images of you drinking too much on your 21st birthday. People want to hire a reliable and reputable individual—someone they can trust to handle their event.
As you work towards increasing your online presence, keep your profile and message consistent across all platforms. Increasing your online presence is essential towards making you an esteemed event industry professional!
Do you have any tips you’d like to share with our readers? Leave a comment!
