While we always have good things to say about blogging, it’s hard to ignore that several subtypes come with their own territory when it comes to building an audience and keeping them coming back for more. Even among these, event blogging tends to be an outlier that gets overlooked by many digital media brands, even though it has the potential to pull huge audience numbers if done correctly. Event blogging also serves as a great way to introduce your digital media brand to newcomers. It entices them to check out your other content and hopefully find more reasons to stick around.
The good news is that event blogging isn’t that different from regular blogging. It’s incredibly accessible and easy to start doing on your platform, and Viafoura’s suite of community engagement tools is excellent for supporting your event blogging efforts. So let’s go over some event blogging tips and how you can start implementing them on your website.
What is event blogging?
Digital media brands are no strangers to blogging, but event blogging may not necessarily be on their radar. In a world where generating stable, consistent views and retaining an audience for as long as possible is ideal, event blogging may not seem like the most effective strategy at first glance. But the fact is that in some ways, event blogging relies on consistency even more than other blogging methods.
As the name suggests, event blogging focuses on covering seasonal topics focused around specific events occurring near a particular time or date. For example, a big concert tour in town, an upcoming awards show, or a convention that’s set to reveal some new technological innovation; all of these are potential subjects for an event blog. The idea is to cover live happenings as the event rolls around, but news and updates in the weeks leading up to the event can also be a focus. Readers that are interested in that event become part of your audience and contribute to the success of your blog and web platform.
How event blogging benefits your brand
Apart from the obvious statistical uptick in views, audience, and potential revenue, there are quite a few reasons why you might want to start event blogging.
For one, event blogging is considerably easier to start up and get running. Since you’re focusing on events that will already be on people’s radars, your blog needs to provide the right information and details to attract a rush of interested audience members. You start an event blog anywhere from a few weeks to a few days before the event and still benefit from it.
Event blogging also puts your digital media brand on the radar as a source for exciting news and coverage. Many first-time visitors tend to find new sources of information and news through event blogging, so having one can bridge the gap between your brand and potential community members who just haven’t stumbled upon your website in the vast expanses of the internet.
Now it might be obvious that there’s a potential flaw with event blogging – it’s all well and good to focus on events for your blog material, but what about the space in between happenings? Sometimes, there just isn’t much going on at all, and the fact is that event blogs are best used to supplement an existing blogging niche.
You won’t be drawing in a huge amount of traffic or a loyal audience base just by event blogging. But on the flipside, event blogging can provide additional value for your blog to audience members and search engines. Combined with how simple it is to start up an event blog, it’s a great option for digital media brands that already have a respectable following to raise their appeal and draw in more of an audience.
Event blogging tips: Step by Step
Now that we’ve gone over the benefits of event blogging, you may have been convinced to start your own. Here are some great event blogging tips and a general outline of how you can go about putting together an event blog.
Choose an event
This may be obvious, but you need an event for event blogging. But choosing the right type of event is just as important as adding blog content for it. You’ll find more success finding an event that’s related in some way to your original niche. For example, if you produce sports content on your web platform, you may want to find a big game or tournament that’s coming up and cover that.
Start early
While you can launch your blog just days before the event and still find success, setting it up for success can take weeks or even months of planning, depending on the scale of the event. You’ll need to figure out a schedule and monitor the official event source for any news or updates on a regular basis to be on top of your own coverage. If you’re willing to put the time and manpower behind it, you can start event blogging very early, especially if the organizers are doing a great job marketing it and producing lots of content for you to cover on your platform.
cover the right details
Focusing on just the facts isn’t the only way to cover an upcoming event; many readers, especially the younger generation, are just happy to be part of the experience and excitement. There’s plenty of content that you can generate on your own still related to the event. You might share some opinion pieces that speculate about the happenings, performances, or results of the event or compile a list of hotels or accommodations that attendees might consider if the event goes on for multiple days. This lets you deliver direct value through event blogging, and new audience members are likely to remember your platform positively as a good source of the overall information.
Update regularly
Try to keep your blog content fresh and flowing. The frequency of your posts will probably scale with how early you start event blogging; you don’t need to post every day if you start covering the event weeks in advance. The key is to avoid dead space between your posts and updates, as this is a great way to lose attention fast in both search engine algorithms and audience members. Your frequency is likely to peak just before the event or if you do live updates during the event proceedings.
Conclusion
Event blogging is an often overlooked way to supplement your web platform’s efforts to bring in and retain an audience for your web community. You’ll probably see some great results by following the event blogging tips in this article, but you should also remember that a brand experience is supported by effective tools that let your members communicate and share their opinions and responses. Viafoura’s suite of community management software is a perfect choice for generating more discourse on your event blog, so contact us today to schedule a demo and see how we can make your next event blogging venture a success!
