How to Create & Manage a Social Media Wall for Events with Big Crowds

Find out how using a social media wall for events can increase attendee engagement and extend your company’s social reach

If you’ve been an event coordinator for a while, you’ve witnessed how technology has changed conferences, meetings, trade shows, and other big gatherings. Forget the industry magazine ads and direct mail of yesteryear — in a recent survey, 73% of event planners listed social media as the most effective tool for event marketing. Social media is great for promotion leading up to your event, but there’s always that challenge of keeping attendees engaged during the event. In gatherings with big crowds, people can feel disconnected because they don’t know many other attendees. It’s not enough to encourage conference-goers to use your hashtag; a social media wall for events like this is the key to connecting everyone — attendees and the outside world — on your social platforms.

A social media wall for events with big crowds creates conversation, builds community, and ultimately, extends your event’s social reach.

What is a social media wall?

A social media wall is a large screen (or several screens) that broadcast a real-time social feed during your event. Everwall pulls content from Twitter and Instagram. It’s also possible to display content sent via SMS/MMS, Slack, web form, email, and Everwall Direct. A social media wall displays posts based on specific hashtags, keywords, phrases, users, or user mentions.

Screens for social media walls can be placed anywhere around an event. Favorite locations include the venue’s lobby, on the sides of the stage, and really any higher traffic areas where they can get good visibility.

Creating and customizing a social media wall for events

Creating and utilizing a social media wall for your events is effortless and versatile. You can customize its appearance each time you use it to create a unique experience.

For example, all aspects of Everwall are completely customizable. You can pick from 12 layouts and customize them with your logos, imagery, colors, fonts, and more. You can post announcements to your social wall throughout the event and take polls on Twitter and Instagram and get the live results on your wall. Attendees also love the three kinds of real-time leaderboards — you can rank engaged participants based on engagement, interactions, or followers.

When you’re creating a social wall for a significant event, there are a few specific factors to consider.

• How big is your venue? And how many screens will you need to keep the social wall top-of-mind for attendees?
• Rather than adopting the “set it and forget it” mentality, tie the wall into live presentations or announcements. Have speakers mention the wall and even take questions through it or conduct a contest. Your social wall may be virtual, but it still needs that live human component to keep a big group engaged.
• Is your event hashtag unique and easy to remember? When you’re encouraging a massive crowd of people in a busy environment to tweet or post on Instagram with your hashtag, it has to be quick to type and recall.
• To avoid any issues with your event hashtag, make sure it’s unique and established in advance. Promote it extensively, including having speakers or announcers mention it repeatedly throughout the event. Don’t just rely on a few locations to showcase it.

You don’t need to be tech-savvy to increase engagement at your events. If you have a web browser, a computer, and access to the internet, you can display your Everwall. iPad only? We support that, too. Start your social media wall today.

Why the best social media wall for events can be managed live

All of that live user-generated content is pure magic for an event marketer — but it can also be a nightmare if it’s not moderated or appropriately managed. It only takes one inappropriate tweet slipping through to create a problem or sour a mood.

Luckily, an excellent social media wall will include moderation options. If you or someone on your team wants to moderate live during the event, you can view every post or photo before deciding if they can go onto the wall. On the flipside, if you’re just too busy to manage that constant stream of content, Everwall has a team of moderators available 24/7 to help you out.

3 creative ways to use a social media wall at your next event

Seeing the benefits of a social media wall for events, but not quite sure how to apply them in a creative way that will impress your guests? Here are just a few ways you can make your social wall the star of the show:

1. Run a photo contest

Encourage attendees to take a selfie somewhere in your venue with the event logo in the photo. Require the use of your event hashtag (or create a specific one for your contest) and watch as the photos stream on your social wall. Towards the end of the day, choose a random winner. Or, select your three favorites, post them on the social wall, and ask attendees to vote on the winner using the contest hashtag.

2. Get speakers involved

Big conferences and meetings aren’t just about the attendees — there are likely some great speakers and presenters involved, too. Pull together a list of all speaker Twitter handles and share their posts on your social wall’s feed. By doing this, attendees can connect with presenters who inspired them and maintain that relationship after your event.

3. Take questions

When you’re hosting a large event, the classic Q&A format can be tough during exceptionally well-attended sessions. Skip the traditional method of yelling or running around with a microphone to take questions. Instead, use Twitter to gather questions from the audience. Tell attendees to tweet questions @ your company and use the event hashtag. Moderate during the event and put the best questions up on the big social wall.

The sky’s the limit with social media walls, so don’t be afraid to get creative, put yourself in your guests’ shoes, and brainstorm ways to make their experience easier, fun, and engaging.