Finding the right speaker at an event to resonate with attendees is key. Pictured: TV personality Lisa Ling moderating an event with celebrity chefs. Photo by Jackson Patterson

A mere decade ago, the concept of using influencers to market an event was a foreign concept, as social media simply didn’t have the pull that it does today. In fact, today’s meeting planners and event marketers are recognizing the vast impact influencers can have on events while resonating with attendees. That said, identifying, connecting and harnessing the power of influencers takes tenacity, strategy and understanding to effectively drive interest in an event.

Social media plays a prominent role in marketing, communication and event promotions. For meeting planners and the companies with which they work, social media has proven to be one of the most powerful tools available to help promote events. And within the realm of social media lies influencers and all the power they hold in catapulting an event to the next level. Reaching potential attendees has never been easier thanks to the role that influencers take.

“Influencers have transitioned from mere attendees to pivotal partners in event planning,” says Amanda Ma, CEO of Innovate Marketing Group (IMG) – an award-winning event management agency. “Their role now extends beyond promotion to active participation, content creation and audience engagement, amplifying the event’s reach and impact.”

So how are event planners engaging, educating and entertaining audiences with the help of social media natives and influencers? Quite simply, planners are recognizing that humans make decisions and form opinions based on the decisions and opinions of others. These “others” are often considered to have influential power that can impact the decision-making of those who pay attention to what the influencer says, does or promotes via social media. They exert influence on attendees without them even realizing it.

In fact, the power of influencers is one of the most important reasons why event planners should be on social media. As a communication tool, social media and the influencers who reside within allow planners to zoom in on any location, demographic or interest that is related to a business and its event strategies. The combination of an influential person and a social media platform can result in a solid event marketing program. Of course, the opposite can also happen: if an influencer is not the right fit and their audience does not match the demographic that the event is intended to draw, the influencer marketing efforts will fall flat.

As Ma further explains, event planners leverage social media natives/influencers to infuse events with fresh perspectives, interactive experiences and captivating content. By collaborating with influencers, planners create immersive environments that foster engagement, knowledge-sharing and entertainment, enhancing the overall attendee experience.

Craig Heron, meeting professional and director of marketing at Event Vesta, recently conducted a survey of top event organizers at national bar chains, festivals and performing arts centers. Nearly 22% of respondents said that influencer marketing was the “promotion channel they would use more if they had better knowledge or tools to effectively use it.” – the highest channel by a good margin. It’s clear that event organizers know how valuable working with influencers can be as a marketing channel, but many still feel behind in learning how to effectively execute the strategy.

“What we’ve seen work best is giving the influencer something to promote that feels good for them to promote to their audience,” Heron says. “In part, that means choosing the right influencers that would be interested in your event themselves. Another part of it is giving them something like a giveaway to make their posts feel special and important. Giving away more than just a ticket can be even more effective, like giving a full travel, lodging, meals, and attendance package away.”

According to Gianna Cardinale Gaudini, CEO of Studio G Event Consulting, who is the former head of events at Airtable, AWS, Google and Softbank Vision Fun and the author of “The Art of Event Planning,” with so much content and information available, people are increasingly seeking the recommendations of their peers and aspirational industry idols.

“Costly keynote speakers resonate less with attendees than industry influencers because people want to hear from others who have paved the way and are successful in their field or an adjacent field,” Gaudini says. By bringing influencers on stage as speakers rather than traditional celebrity keynote speakers, event organizers are realizing stronger ROI, spending less money and leveraging the influencers’ extensive networks to promote their event, drive attendance and re-share content.

Finding the Right Influencer

The key to identifying the ideal influencer and partnering with them to market an event lies in aligning the influencer’s niche, audience demographics and values with the event’s objectives and target audience.

“Planners should conduct thorough research, analyze engagement metrics and assess the influencer’s authenticity and credibility to ensure a seamless fit,” Ma says.

For a beauty influencer event, Ma and her team collaborated with a beauty influencer known for advocating clean beauty practices. Their authentic voice and dedicated following amplified the event’s message, resulting in increased event awareness and engagement, both online and offline.

To find the ideal influencer for event promotion, planners can simply look for influencers on social media platforms such as X, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok. They can also search for hashtags and keywords that are relevant to the event being orchestrated.

There also are various influencer marketing platforms that have proven to be beneficial to event planners and marketers, including AspireIQ, Upfluence and Brandwatch, where influencers reside and can be identified as potentially beneficial for marketing a specific event.

“In some types of events, influencers come built in. If your event has speakers, they likely have their own audience,” says Heron, who has seen events expanding their engagement with speakers by signing them to do virtual Q&A sessions or Ask Me Anything (AMA) threads before or after the event on social media. Most events that have speakers also repurpose those talks into video content, shorts and written takeaways that can help expand the reach of the event.

In order to find the ideal influencer, Heron points to various directories available if a planner needs to source influencers at scale, but what he sees being the most effective is when a planner can identify “good-fit” influencers on their own. To do so, they need to think like their audience.

“You can use tools like SparkToro to identify what podcasts, YouTube channels, social media pages and websites your audience already engages with,” Heron advises. “You can also do that research on your own by seeing who they follow on various social media channels.”

This work might be tedious at first, but the knowledge a planner will gain about an event’s potential audience will pay off over the long run. As Heron further explains, a planner will want someone who isn’t so massively popular that it will cost a fortune to engage with them, but who still has a decent following and engagement with their content.

“What a ‘decent following’ looks like will depend greatly on the size of your event and how niche your audience is,” Heron says. “The more niche the audience, the lower that number will have to be to matter.”

Heron recently interviewed Kristen Lau-Grove from Hawaii Food & Wine Festival about how they engage with influencers. They create a sweepstakes giveaway that includes the tickets, flights and lodging to the festival.

“The influencer then gets to give that prize away to their audience and the influencer also gets the same package,” Heron says. “That way the festival is getting audience reach and engagement before, during and after the event, instead of just afterwards.”

To identify the ideal influencers for an event, Gaudini recommends planners start with their network, especially executives’ relationships with industry influencers. Personal connections are more likely to accept a speaking offer and also to promote the event. “Plus, they already have a relationship with your executive(s), so they will sound more authentic when they speak about your event and how it might be a solution to your audience,” Gaudini says.

Another great way to find influencers is for planners to look within their company’s field or industry at who has recently written a book that they might want to promote at events that would cater to the planner’s attendees. By offering book signing and meet-and-greet opportunities for influential authors, planners will meet the needs of their audience and also the author, who will undoubtedly post about it on social media.

Planners should look for influencers whose audience demographics match an event’s targeted attendees and try to identify influencers with high engagement rates, including likes, shares and comments. Of course, the quality of the content that the influencer produces is also paramount and should align with the event’s or company’s brand. Planners should also check to see if the influencer has collaborated with similar events or companies in the past to gauge how successful they are in their efforts. They can look for key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, ticket sales and attendee engagement on social media. Those indicators will also be important in determining the viability of the influencer.

“Industry analysts are also great influencers, as many corporate buyers trust analysts to make buying decisions,” Gaudini says. “By commissioning an analyst to write a white paper featuring a company and then inviting them to speak at an event, you are proving relevance in the space with a highly-qualified expert.”

Strategies That Work With Influencers

When working with and engaging influencers, planners should “ride on” the proverbial coattails of the influencers’ personalities, skills, reach and presence to achieve their event marketing objectives. Ma says one way of doing this is to leverage the influencer’s characteristics and credentials to tailor content, promotions and experiences that resonate with the target audience.

“From exclusive previews and behind-the-scenes access to interactive Q&A sessions and influencer-hosted workshops, creativity is key to maximizing impact and achieving event marketing goals,” Ma says. “By fostering authentic partnerships, providing creative freedom and acknowledging influencers’ contributions, planners can cultivate long-term collaborations that drive success and elevate the event’s brand.”

And of course, as Ma points out, providing strategic activation elements for them to capture the essence of the event is a must.

“Lastly, it is important to have a balance of nano, micro, macro and mega influencers,” Ma says.

These titles refer to the number of followers influencers may have:

• Nano influencers (1K–10K followers)
• Micro influencers (10K–100K followers)
• Macro influencers (100K–1M followers)
• Mega or celebrity influencers (1M+ followers)

Gaudini recently partnered with Ray Wang, an industry analyst and speaker, as well as Scott Belsky on Airtable Leader’s Forum. Both spoke on the keynote stage and provided signed copies of their books to the event’s audience.

“They both have massive followings and actively tweeted/posted about our event on social media, which amplified the reach and built the credibility of our product,” Gaudini says.

She recommends planners start with a conversation with the influencer to learn more about their expertise and areas of overlap with the brand/company that is hosting the event.

“You also want to agree on a format that will feel natural for the influencer to participate (i.e., perhaps it’s a fireside chat rather than a keynote) and, if at all possible, invite them to stay for the entire event so they can meet your customers/prospects, which will benefit everyone involved,” Gaudini says. Share materials with them that make it easy to promote and create VIP moments that they want to share without being prompted to do so.

“For example, at my Leaders Forum, we had such ‘Instagrammable’ food throughout the event that Ray posted how fabulous the experience was, along with photos, without us even asking him to,” Gaudini says.

In the end, finding the ideal influencer takes time, research and patience. But it is very much worth the effort, as partnering with the right influencer can result in solid visibility of an event and boost attendance numbers. To make the most of working with influencers, planners need to engage them personally as people. If the influencer seems like an ideal fit and can deliver results, cultivate a long-term relationship so that any future collaborations may prove fruitful for all parties.

“The influencers know their audience better than anyone,” Heron says. “For the best results, the event organizer should work collaboratively with the influencer to come up with campaigns that are creative and engaging for that specific audience.”   I&FMM