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Over the last two years, we've learned a lot about events of all types - from internal celebrations to worldwide conferences. We collected research from our clients to find out the things they've struggled with most, and with that in mind, compiled a list of tips to help promote your Virtual Photo Booth in any setting (in-person, virtual, or hybrid)! In this blog we'll go into depth about our 9 tips for promoting your Virtual Photo Booth:
- Building anticipation
- Taking advantage of social media
- Having your internal team get the ball rolling
- Sending a "save the date" email
- Scheduling a designated time for the booth
- Providing easy access with a QR code
- Gamifying your booth
- Making your booth prominent on event platforms
- Using a photo mosaic to drive engagement
1. Build anticipation
Announce your event ahead of time and inform people about the online photo booth. By hyping up your event/booth a couple of weeks (or at least a few days) ahead of time, you can prevent people from forgetting or simply not knowing.
A good way to build hype is to give your attendees shareable content - this could be a simple tweet or a branded Facebook graphic that users can share with just a click of a button. By creating shareable content related to your event you increase the chance they will share your content with their connections and encourage them to attend your event.
2. Take advantage of social media
Promote your event and photo booth on the social media platforms you're most active on. Depending on the audience (internal or external) you can easily take advantage of organic or paid promotion.
Social media platforms offer the opportunity to engage your audience with both photo and video content. Statistics consistently demonstrate that video content is more captivating than text and photo content combined. Incorporating video marketing into your social media campaigns can significantly expand your reach and boost the success of your events. It's crucial to prioritize high-quality video content, and video editing software can be immensely helpful in this regard. With the right tools, you can add music, crop or trim videos, and apply various effects. For instance, a blur video editor allows you to selectively blur the background or specific parts of your videos that you prefer not to share with your audience. By leveraging these editing capabilities, you can create visually appealing and impactful videos that leave a lasting impression.
A popular way of promoting events is to create a Facebook Event where you provide the link to your booth in the event details. This allows you to easily let people know what day and time your event is happening. If you have an online community platform, such as a Facebook group, don't hesitate to also publish the event there as well.
Create a custom hashtag for your event in which attendees can include in their shared Virtual Photo Booth selfies - by clicking on that hashtag other users will be able to easily see all the generated content from your photo booth app.
3. Have your internal team get the party started
Have your internal team - staff, interns, managers, clients, literally anyone you want - take photos in your booth pre-event so your gallery already has awesome content in there to inspire new attendees!
By having a few (or a bunch - it's totally up to you) photos already populated in your public gallery it gives attendees an idea of what to expect before they even use your booth - which can instantly relieve any nerves of using an online photo booth for the first time.
4. Send a "save the date" email
Send out an eye-catching email with branded event graphics letting potential attendees know the date and time of your event, along with a call-to-action button taking them to the Virtual Photo Booth. If design isn't your thing, you can find easy-to-edit templates to promote your event and booth on sites like Canva.
Alternatively, if you're just on too tight of a timeline to design anything, a simple text based email will do the trick as well, just be sure to provide an obvious link to your booth - this can be done using a button, color-coding the link, bolding the text, etc.
5. Schedule a designated time
If you're hosting an internal event sometimes it can be hard to get employees to take a break from the busy day besides lunch - in this case, set aside a designated time to interact with your booth.
If employees see other team members having fun with the booth, they will be more likely to join in on the fun. Setting aside a scheduled time can also serve as a reminder, so employees don't forget the event. Other easy ways to encourage employee engagement is to add a Google calendar invite with a link to your booth or send out a company-wide Slack message with simple instructions to have fun.
6. Provide easy access with a QR code
Create your own QR code (or have us do it!) that easily links to your booth. Users scan the QR code using their smartphone and voilà, they are taken to the Virtual Photo Booth. Test this one out right here:
The best part about QR codes is they can be placed and shared anywhere. Here are some of the top ways to share a QR code with your attendees or check out our photo booth resources page for more:
- If you're hosting an in-person event have your QR code printed on flyers/posters/banners around the event venue.
- Order a custom backdrop (we can help with that!) that includes your branding along with simple instructions and (obviously) the QR code to access your booth.
- Include your QR code in digital event promotion - this can be things like email, blogs, your website, or even a simple direct message.
7. Gamify your booth
Everyone loves a good prize. Incentivize your attendees to use your Virtual Photo Booth by hosting a contest or giveaway. You can easily adjust your booth heading and share messaging to inform users about your contest and promote it using your custom hashtag as mentioned above.
8. Make your booth easily seen on event platforms
If it's your first time using a virtual event platform it can be a bit overwhelming to know where to put your booth in to gain the most traction. We recommend displaying your booth prominently on either the home page of the platform or in the navigation bar so people can effortlessly access the booth. Check out our photo booth case studies for some successful event resources on how to optimize engagement for virtual and in-person events.
Along with embedding your booth into the platform of your choice, you can also embed your gallery so as users take new photos it auto-updates, displaying all the great content from attendees. Not to mention a little bit of FOMO might play in here, think about it - if you see a ton of other attendees taking fun pics, wouldn't you want to join in on the fun too?
9. Use your photo mosaic to drive engagement
For events that take advantage of our photo mosaic add-on, you can conveniently use this as a way to drive engagement. Sending a friendly reminder via Slack, email, social, or a banner ad on your website that says "Be sure to take photos in our booth so you can be a part of our mosaic when we share it later!" can give people an incentive so they don't miss out on being a part of the mosaic.
Lastly...
We're constantly trying to learn and improve our products, if you have any suggestions or additional questions besides the tips listed above please reach out to our team!
