How to Create an Instagram Wall for Events

Creating an Instagram wall for events can turn attendees into your best photographers, marketers, and ambassadors.

When attending any event, whether it’s a wedding, a 5k, a fundraiser, or a conference, there’s one thing attendees look forward to most after curtains have closed — the photos! Thanks to hashtags, attendees can self-sort pictures from events on their phones, but some of the savviest event planners are now creating an Instagram wall for events.

The basis of creating an Instagram wall for events is pretty straightforward in its execution; planners will hang a large projection screen or TV on a wall with a sign for the designated hashtag, and on the screen, you’ll see a collage of Instagram posts showing up in real time. It usually causes a bit of excitement, because people are natural voyeurs and will rush to get photos of their favorite cocktails, friends, and fun up on the wall at the event. Photo booths were so last year, am I right?

Benefits of having an Instagram Wall at your events

There’s more to it than just fun, though. Creating an Instagram wall for events has quite a few benefits for everyone involved, whether it’s a small intimate event or a large corporate event, and it’s affordable for both types.

• The attendees will take more photos, so the hosts get an even more significant collection of memories for an event like a wedding or soiree.
• If the event is for business, the company will be pleased to see how many more photos are out in the socialverse promoting their event, which is excellent event marketing and could increase ticket sales for the following year.
• The photo-takers are happy to see their works of art (or social proof they put on pants that day), displayed for everyone to see.
• Finally, the event planner can take credit for a highly publicized event that guests truly enjoyed—an Instagram wall is like the adult bouncy house of parties and conferences.

Engage your attendees with a real-time, fully customizable Instagram Wall. Ready to get started? Start your Instagram Wall today.

How to use an Instagram wall to kickstart your event

Instagram continues to increase in popularity. It’s photo-centric, so people can bypass the drama on Facebook and go right to Instagram to post photos. And Instagram welcomes this activity, encouraging people to use hashtags. You can now even follow hashtags, so if you’re a conference organizer, you could promote a hashtag today, and post to it again when the next event is accepting registrations.

At Everwall, we can get you set up with an Instagram wall for events lickity split, but if you aren’t sure how you want to use it yet and are still planning your social media timeline, here are a few ideas:

• For conferences, use Everwall’s ability show both Twitter and Instagram on the same social wall to display tweets from the speakers at your conference. Before the event, let speakers know and encourage them to quote one another in Tweets, throughout the event. And of course, setup Instagram to pull in posts by your event’s hashtag and display the Instagram Posts on a massive wall for everyone to see.
• At a tradeshow, leave the business card fishbowl at home and organize a booth that includes photo ops as part of a contest. Ask attendees to use a hashtag and post it to Instagram to win a prize, then display the social posts and leaderboard throughout the event.
• At weddings, use a social wall to display all the photos people are hashtagging during the event to increase participation and collect bonus memories for the bride and groom.
• At fundraisers, have a dedicated social photographer go around to take and post photos of each of the tables, and display them on a large, prominent projection screen. Throughout the event, @ your more prominent and most supportive donors, and encourage guests to use a designated hashtag.
• When you’re in the business of engaging people, creating an Instagram wall for events makes total sense—give attendees a hashtag and let them go to town populating your digital wall with photos.

How to make an Instagram Wall (the diy way)

Making your Instagram Wall is really easy when you use a service like Everwall. After creating an account, Everwall will walk you through all the required steps. The birds eye view of the process is essentially this:

1. Create an account on Everwall.
2. Click the button to create a new Event Social Wall. Or, if you want to display it long term—like at a restaurant—select Digital Signage, and if you only want to display Instagram on your website, then select the Social Media Hub option. All Event Social Walls on Everwall can be displayed on screens at your event, as well as on your website.
3. Provide the basic details for your Instagram Wall, like the event’s dates.
4. Connect Instagram to Everwall and add the hashtags you want to use. In this step, you can also add other content sources, like Twitter to your Instagram Wall. A full list of content sources we support is available here.
5. Design your Instagram Wall—Everwall has tons of design options, like uploading your logo, customizing colors, fonts, layouts and more.

Three tips to help you when using your Instagram wall at your event:

As you can imagine, having an empty Instagram Wall is no bueno, likewise, having a publicly displayed Instagram Wall can go awry when people know they have center stage, so here are a few tips for handling both:

1. Get the party started. There’s no fun in a blank wall, so either upload photos using the hashtag before the event begins, or designate an official photographer to start filling the feed at the event right away.
2. Don’t hide the hashtag. For the photos to show up on your Instagram wall, people need to use the hashtag, so make it large and prominent on and around the screen.
3. Curation is key. If you use a service like Everwall for your Instagram wall, you can use the curation features, or enlist their team to curate the feed during your event manually.

When creating an Instagram wall for events, the wall is your oyster. It’s an effortless way to turn event goers into your best photographers, marketers, and ambassadors.