I regularly come across social media posts promoting events, but it’s not clear where or when they’re taking place. Or sometimes even what the event is!
People think just bunging an image of their poster on Instagram will persuade loads of people to turn up to their event. But it’s not that easy. Here’s why.
I moderate a group on Facebook where I vet posts before they’re published. I despair at the number of singing events that don’t mention where in the country they’re taking place. Or they say something like “It’s tomorrow!”, but it’s not clear when the post appeared.
People tend to make the same simple mistakes, so I thought I’d round up some of the issues here.
what, where, when and how?
Wherever and however you’re promoting your event, you need to let people know:
- what the event is (concert? singing workshop? come and sing day?);
- where it’s taking place (not just a ‘local’ landmark as not everyone reading will live round your way – give the full address and postcode);
- when it’s happening (date, day and time and even year if it’s being publicised way in advance);
- how people can buy tickets.
make sure your image fits the medium
Often a choir will take an image of their poster and post it to social media. There are several reasons why this is a bad idea.
A poster is designed to be at least A4 size, often A3 size. It needs to be seen from afar so the important information has to be clear and bold. Less important information can be in smaller font size. Usually there is a striking image and the poster might have lots of different colours. A poster is most often portrait orientation (I.e. it’s taller than it is wide).
If this is duplicated and posted on social media, it will be much, much smaller. What worked at A3 size might now be tiny and illegible. The colourful, impactful imagery might now look messy and busy. Also social media tends to favour landscape images (I.e. wider than they are taller) which means only a slice of your original poster will appear. And you have little control over what that slice might be.
control how your image is sliced and diced
It’s always best to design a promotional image especially for social media. It’s quite easy to discover what different sized images are favoured by the different platforms. You can find a free guide here on Sprout Social, or simply Google “social media image sizes”. Design to that spec and keep things clear and simple. You might not be able to put everything in that you had on your physical A3 poster.
If you do decide to use your poster image, do the slicing up yourself so you can control which bit of the poster appears. Again, look at the specs for each platform and crop and resize your poster image accordingly.
Here’s an example of a physical A4 poster:
And here’s what a Facebook event slice might look like:
Unfortunately there’s no way to jiggle the image so that Facebook takes a slice with all the relevant information visible.
a social media image is not enough on its own
People don’t tend to look at promotional material carefully. They will scan an image quickly and sometimes miss the important bits. It’s not enough on social media to rely on an image to do the job on its own. Always add some text to the post.
For example, even if your image contains what, where, when and how, it’s always a good idea to repeat them in the accompanying text. Perhaps using slightly different wording.
For the concert poster I showed above, I might write this to accompany it:
“The OK Chorale and Heartbeat will be in concert at St. Mary’s Church, Woodbridge at 7.30pm on Saturday 12 March. An evening of songs and passion from across the globe. Tickets are £6 available here https://chrisrowbury.com”
There is a lot of redundancy, but more chance that people will take in the important information.
Be aware, that if people share your image or event (especially on Facebook), the accompanying text may not be shared with it.
not the way to do it!
Here are some example of when event images don't tell the whole story.
BOOKING NOW OPEN! For what? A concert? Come and sing? Open rehearsal? Demonstration? And where is it? When? How can I get tickets?
Accompanying text: “Meet our superb line-up for Spring Serenade Sunday 28th April.” Where? When? How do I get tickets?
Below is an example of two images being shared side by side on Facebook, but the platform has sliced them randomly and cut out much of the important information. People are busy and might not take the time to click on the image, and even then, both images are quite overloaded with information.
other posts
You might find these older posts of interest too.
Only connect – a brief introduction to social media for choirs
Why your concert publicity isn’t working
Finding an audience 3: letting people know
How to promote your next choir concert to reach more people and get a bigger audience
Chris Rowbury
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