Ever feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day? Does your to-do list never seem to get any smaller? Need some help maximising your event planning productivity?
As host to some very prestigious events ourselves, we’re well-versed in event planning, and we understand that it can be tricky to keep all those balls in the air andstill throw a spectacular event. So whether you’re planning an industry conference or your first small training event, make sure you have the right tools up your sleeve to get the job done.
1. Eventbrite
When it comes to hosting an event of your own, whether it’s a free training course or a paid industry conference, Eventbrite should be at the top of your list for the main planning of your event. Put down the pen and paper and step away from the Excel sheet – if that’s what you’re still using to manage your guest lists. Eventbrite does it all for you; helps to track how many people have bought tickets, who has registered and even easily lets you promote your event.
2. Eventopedia
When you’re hosting an event, you won’t be able to do it alone. You’ll need to provide food for your guests at the very least but you also may need dozens of other different suppliers. Finding ones in your area with good reviews and who can deliver within your budget is a full-time job in itself during your event planning.
Eventopedia can help you out. This is a UK startup website that is aiming to be the ‘TripAdvisor’ of event planning. On here you can find suppliers in your area and rate and review them once you’re done.
3. Slack
Chances are you won’t be the only one on your team involved in the event planning. And given everything that you have to organise, you’ll be receiving a lot of correspondences from multiple people. Why not ditch the emails and try instant messaging?
Slack allows you to organise conversations with your team depending on the project, the topic of discussion, the team involved, or pretty much anything you want. You can also create private chat groups or send direct messages, and it will even store files, documents, images and PDFs. Everything you need can be in one place.
4. Hootsuite
If you don’t have an event hashtag for social media users on the big day, then we strongly suggest that you come up with one before following this step. It doesn’t have to be complicated; maybe the name of your event with the year it was hosted? That way, if you run the event again next year, simply update the year.
Now, back to the tools. It’s inevitable that people are going to want to talk about your event on social media, and you need to be interacting with them too. Whether it’s a like, favourite, a retweet or a reply, people will feel valued when you either show your appreciation for their views, engage in a bit of friendly banter or help solve a problem. Your more likely to have them coming back next year.
What Hootsuite does is provide a convenient place for you to gather all social media chatter that you want to monitor. In one column you could have your own feed, your notifications in a second, and in another you could have all mentions of your event hashtag so you can keep up-to-date with what the attendees are saying.
5. Pinterest
Event planners are naturally creative people; they love to think up new ideas. But we get that with everything else on your to-do list, searching for inspiration for your next event or your client’s upcoming conference may not be high up there. And we’re sure you don’t want to spend hours of your precious time scrolling through pages of text.
Pinterest lets you explore dozens of different topics at the click of a mouse, displaying thousands of ideas in visual form for you to enjoy. You can even create your own virtual pinboards – hence the name – or mood boards under different topics and store them in one easy to find place. Needs a little inspiration? Simply log on and scroll.
Category: Blog