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3 Ways to Build FOMO in Event Marketing

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You know that feeling when you’re scrolling through social feeds and see pics and videos from friends having an ah-mazing time at parties and events you didn’t attend, and you suddenly feel a bit blue that everyone is having more fun than you are?

That’s #FOMO—the fear of missing out.

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is a real psychological trigger all of us can’t help but respond to. According to a study, FOMO is “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.”

This got-to-be-there feeling is a powerful motivator event planners can and should utilize in marketing their events.

Here are three ways to tap into FOMO:

 

1. Define Your Event Story

For attendees to feel as if they’re missing out, first you have to build an emotional connection. After all, if attendees don’t feel there is something unique or special about your event, they won’t even give pause to consider attending.

And that’s where a strong event story comes in. Between the written words, the event visuals, and everything else in-between build a compelling case as to why your event can’t be missed.

For maximum impact, align the story with what your target audience cares about. Perhaps they’re most interested to hear from a roster of well-known speakers, visit a unique location, hang out at a fabulous after-party, make new connections through ample networking opportunities or some other unique event experience.

Then distill that event story down to bite-sized pieces and use as the foundation throughout all communications. At the same time, determine the overall event look and feel that echoes that story – everything from the event’s color palette, fonts and supporting graphics used, and even the floorplans and room sets.

2. Give Your Social Sizzle

A strong social promotion strategy is important to maximizing FOMO. Focus efforts on social platforms your specific target audiences use the most – whether that’s Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Snapchat or WhatsApp.

Other tips to give your social media marketing sizzle and create FOMO:

  • Aim for highly-visual, easily digestible content that catches attention in a crowded social feed.
  • Designate an event hashtag to help you and attendees easily share and track event-related content.
  • Integrate a social share widget on all your marketing communications, including emails and web pages, to expand the reach of your event promotions.
  • Create a referral campaign that encourages users to repost content and tag their friends.
  • Provide speakers, sponsors and exhibitors with tools, like pre-written emails and social-optimized graphics, to share the event with their social media followers.
  • Use Snapchat, and Facebook and Instagram Stories to provide sneak peeks, VIP access to exclusive content, or special offers/discounts – and encourage viewing before the content is gone.

3. Slowly Build Anticipation

In a social world where on average 6,000 tweets are sent per second, 350,000 tweets are sent per minute and 500 million tweets are sent per day, a single release of all the glorious event details is likely to quickly make your event fall off attendees’ radar.

Build FOMO by spreading out and teasing important event details leading up to the event. Start off creating excitement by announcing the event venue and date. Next, release clues or brief details about event entertainment or speakers. Then release a few more specifics about additional speakers. Once the full agenda is released, ask speakers to record teaser videos about their sessions to add even more excitement. And don’t forget to showcase your event’s beautiful design through a series of image sneak peeks too.

In addition to promoting these details via email to past attendees or your database, share the teasers on social media and your event website too.

Another idea to take the teaser campaign to the next level is by making attendees work for the details. For example, share a partially covered image of a speaker that will only be fully revealed if/when a certain number of fans like or share the image.

Give your next event that got-to-be-there feeling by incorporating these three ideas into your event promotion strategy.

For more information about using Prismm to create stunning floorplans and immersive visualizations that will boost that feeling of FOMO, contact us for a demo. 

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