Are you in the business of Carnival? How Social Media can help you raise your profile
With the UK Carnival season about to begin, how can social media help your Carnival business?
Mas Player crossing the stage at Trinidad Carnival 2014 Photo courtesy of Marcus O’Brien
Carnival is a worldwide year long business moving from country to country throughout the year. In the UK our Carnival season is about to get underway, with fantastic events throughout the summer months in various UK cities – with the massive London Notting Hill Carnival taking place on bank holiday weekend in August.
Carnival in the UK is changing and evolving in terms of organisation and the road experience. Each year there are more fetes, boat trips, Carnival Expo’s and other related events as well as the main events which provide a thrilling build up for all involved.
Bands are offering packages similar to how bands are organised in Trinidad and other carnivals overseas. Key players in carnival are on a year long rotation of countries and events.
Social media is key in bringing this world together and for this reason there are many benefits to businesses promoting their events, bands, costumes, fetes as well as for the DJs and artists. So which platforms will get you noticed?
With the largest and most diverse online audience, Facebook is still a key player in online promotion. Starting a Facebook Page and making sure you have set it up correctly with the right audience selected is important.
In terms of getting page likes, most people start with their friends first, and then join groups to promote their page organically. The last and most beneficial option is paid for advertising. In my experience, boosting page posts and creating audiences you want to reach is your best value and most effective option. You can target your customers and the spend is reasonable.
Tip: You need to post relatively frequently and make your content engaging to ensure your audience continue to see your posts.
My favourite network and very active across the Caribbean, UK and Carnival community generally. Twitter works on Hashtags so you need to make sure your tweet has a good visual, web links to where you want to take your customer, tagging any relevant accounts and finally hashtag your key words to make sure your tweets get seen.
Tip: Follow key accounts associated with Carnival and Soca so you can build relationships with others, find key information which you can then share with your network and grow a valuable network for your business.
Instagram has always been popular with the carnival scene across the world. Just like Twitter, you need to know your hashtags to get your posts seen. You can use up to 30 hashtags and it is worth taking the time to find the hashtags that will be most effective for you.
Tip: You can download an app ‘Grama’ to help you with hashtag research but the best way is to type your hashtag into the search e.g. #Soca and see the associated tags and traffic against them.
Promoting Carnival events? Create your own hashtag!
Promote your hashtag and encourage your customers, acts and all concerned to use it. Research your hashtag before you use it to see if others are using it.
Your hashtag can bring a community of people together around your event on Instagram and Twitter.
Carnival is a visual feast so make the most of all photo and video opportunities to tell your businesses story.
Final bit of advice… don’t link facebook to twitter, and Instagram to facebook and twitter! Why? Your content will not display properly across the platforms, so if your message is important, your customers may miss it!
For information on the build up to carnival see: http://www.uksocascene.com
