How to Create a Successful Event on LinkedIn

Do you have something to share with your professional network??

Are you looking for new ways to connect with potential clients/customers??

If so, hosting an event might be the answer. An event can help you grow your connections, share information and strengthen your relationship with your network on LinkedIn.?

Whether it's a one-off webinar, a speaker series or some other type of online-event, hosting a LinkedIn Event as part of your business strategy can be a great way to show your expertise, your credibility and secure new sales leads.

If you’re considering hosting a LinkedIn Event as part of your personal branding or sales strategy, then this article will teach you everything you need to know about planning and hosting the perfect event on LinkedIn.

Why Host an Event on LinkedIn?

Hosting an event on LinkedIn is a great way to build your brand and connect with your target audience and showcase your expertise.

LinkedIn Events provides a simple and streamlined experience for the attendees. The ease of marketing the event, along with the simple pre-populated registration form to the one-click to watch the event, makes LinkedIn the ideal place to host your event.

When creating your event, make sure you clearly define your target audience. This will help you attract the right people who are likely to benefit from your event and engage with your products or services.

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Before you start anything: Know your audience

Before you create your event, take some time to really understand your audience.?

Who will be coming to your event? What industries do they work in? What are their challenges? What are their interests? What do they want to learn from your event??

Once you have a clear picture of your audience, you can start to create an event that will resonate with them. Events should be led by a clear theme or topic that ties all of your content together and adds value to those who attend.

Also, make sure that you have a clear reason for hosting the event. What are you hoping to accomplish? What are you trying to get out of the event??

For example, if you’re looking to host say a fireside-chat style event, be clear about your intentions. Are you hosting the fireside-chat to find new clients? Or are you hoping to find establish yourself as a lead-thinker in your sector?

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How to Create a Successful Event on LinkedIn

For a successful event, start by creating a purpose for hosting the event.?

What do you want to accomplish? What are you trying to get out of the event??

With this decided, you need to create a well crafted event title. A good event tile will do most of the marketing work for you, so make sure it is attention grabbing and simply says what the webinar is about. Eg. Win Your Next Client On LinkedIn

Next, decide on the best day and time to host your event. Best practice suggests that you avoid weekday mornings and Tuesdays & Thursdays tend to work better. Depending upon the style of event, you may want to consider evenings if looking to attract busy professionals or weekends if its more a networking opportunity.

I would recommend always building in a 4-6 week lead time for an event. This gives sufficient time to send event invitations and market the event. Bear in mind that LinkedIn limits an individual to 1,000 invites per week per event (nb. 1,000 invites collectively for Company Page admins)

In addition to location and date, you’ll also want to consider the overall format of your event. Is your event a speaker series? A fireside-chat? Or some other type of event??

The format of your event will depend on the type of event you’re hosting. A teaching or training webinar is best done with a screen displaying presentation slides, whereas a fireside-chat is best done in a relaxed setting such as stools around a high table or living-room type setting.

A successful event page should include:

• A clear overview of your event
• Information on the format and date of your event
• Who will be speaking at your event
• Bullet points of topics to be covered
• Benefits of attending your event

Once you’ve decided on a format, you can start to build your event page and invite connections to join the conversation.

Choose the Platform

The next step in creating your event is choosing the right platform for your event.?

There are a variety of different platforms that you can use to host your event. Some of your options include: LinkedIn Live, YouTube, Zoom Meeting, MS Teams, WebinarJam, Demio …and many others.

When choosing your platform to broadcast your LinkedIn Event, think about the interactions you want with the attendees.?

For small groups of up to 30-40 attendees, you can choose to use an interactive platform like Zoom, Google Meet or MS Teams. These platforms enable you to dialogue directly with attendees making the experience more inclusive.

However, for larger groups of attendees, you may want to use a platform such as LinkedIn Live or YouTube. These types of platforms enable you to better control the interaction with attendees, limiting interruptions & distractions by limiting the interaction to chat functionality.

For a successful event, make sure to select a platform that allows you to include all the information and resources that your audience needs. Some platforms provide facilities such as Event Polls, break-out rooms and more.

Building the LinkedIn Event

At this point, you need to decide if you are hosting the LinkedIn Event on your Personal Page or your Company Page.

Personal Page is a simple set but does not give you the option to download attendee data post-event.

Company Page requires a Privacy Policy link and enables you to collect first & last name, job title, company and email address in a downloadable format.

Let’s take a look at the Company Page set-up…

1. Go to your Company Page, under ‘Admin tools’ select Create an event
2. Upload cover image -? This should be a minimum of 480 pixels wide in 16:9 format. This image should be eye-catching and attention grabbing, display the event title and imagery that speaks to the topics you will cover in the event.
3. Organizer? - will default to your account unless managing multiple Company pages
4. Event Type - select Online (nb. Promoting In-person events on LinkedIn is not effective)
5. Event format - LinkedIn Live is recommended but you can select an External event link. (If you select the latter then you need to insert the broadcast link in the External event link section below the event date and time.)
6. Event Name - enter the name of your event
7. Timezone - unless you are targeting a specific international audience then leave the default setting. (nb. Times will automatically adjust to the viewer's regional settings)
8. ?Set the Start date and the Start time (optional: you can set the end date & time)
9. External event link - only applicable if you select this in the Event format section above
10. Use a LinkedIn registration form - make sure to tick this box. Omitting to do this negates the purpose of hosting the event on the Company Page.
11. Description - enter a short intro of the topic followed by 3/4 bullet points of things that you will cover in the event and then a statement about what attendees can expect from attending the event.
12. Speakers - tag in the speaker for the event. Speakers need to be 1st-degree connections. Speakers will receive an invite which they confirm. A confirmed speaker will be displayed on the event giving attendees the opportunity to check-out the individuals.

Promote Your Event

After creating your event, you’ll want to promote it to your network and potentially a wider audience. Promoting your event should start typically 4-6 weeks before the date of the event.

LinkedIn Events have a limit of 1000 invites per attendee, so the direct promotion of the event to your LinkedIn network using the Event invite option is restricted by the size of your network. You can increase invites by encouraging other LinkedIn users to also invite their network. So, a small team of 5 people on LinkedIn could invite collectively 5,000 people per week.

You can also promote your event by doing the following:

• Add an event link to your LinkedIn profile. You can do this by adding a link to your event on your LinkedIn profile in the Intro section.
• Create public posts on LinkedIn that include the information and a description of your profile with a link to register. (see the LinkedIn Event share option)
• Message people directly to invite them and include the event URL. This is most effective if you have a Sales Navigator license which includes an InMail allowance, permitting you to invite people beyond your 1st degrees.
• The same LinkedIn URL can be used on other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc.. to promote the event.

Wherever you share the event, be sure to let your connections know WHY you’re hosting the event and WHY they should attend.

Post Event

Hosting the event is only half of the job done. The other half is getting your follow-up right. The average attendance rate for online events is 10-15% of registrations. However, a good follow-up strategy can double that number.

Once your event is finished download the LinkedIn Event registration data. This is only possible if hosted on a Company Page. For events hosted on a LinkedIn Personal Page, you will need to manually message individuals via the LinkedIn platform.

Using the downloaded data, email all registrants, thanking them for coming to the event and if they were unable to make it then offer them the link to the replay. This will bring in a second audience for the event via the replay.

In your immediate follow-up email and in another a few days later, you invite the individuals to visit your website or contact you for more information. Be aware that organizers should not send communications about their products to event registrants who haven’t selected the consent checkbox on the registration form.

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Conclusion

Hosting an event on LinkedIn is a great way to build your brand and connect with the people interested in your products or services.?

If you want to make the most of your network and tap into the power of your brand, hosting an event is a great way to do it.?

Before you start anything though, make sure you understand whom you are hosting the event for and why. Once you know your audience, you can create an event that will resonate with them and provide value.?

Once you have a clear picture of your audience, you can start to create an event that will resonate with them.

Need help creating events that attract your audience? Get in touch at [email protected]