Designer brands decorate their T-shirts and purses with their logos, offering a win-win for both producer and customer. Through social media, ticketing professionals can do something similar.

Much like trendsetters want to show off that they wear well-respected brands, experience-seekers want to show off that they attend exciting live events. Since the dawn of time, we’ve been carefully sculpting our identities through various means — social media just makes that easier.

Indeed, according to 2017 research from EventBrite, nearly three quarters of millennials say they go to live events to “express who they are.” And, nearly half (48%) say they attend events so they have something to share on social channels.

More research still indicates that a little under half (46%) of festival attendees found out about a festival they attended through social media. And with Facebook’s major restrictions on advertising of late, it would stand to reason that a fair amount of the social media posts come directly from the event attendees themselves.

It would seem that attendees share their live event attendance on social media and do so broadly and consistently. And according to Market Force, 81 of U.S. online consumers’ purchase decisions are influenced specifically by their friends’ social media posts.

Attendees posting about your event on social media is an asset — that is not in question. The real question of the moment is: Should you put time and effort into encouraging attendees to post on social media?

The Moment of ‘Shareable Moments’

Photo booths at events are clever ways to encourage the taking of photos that otherwise might never have been taken — and shared on social media.

There are a multitude of ways to inspire attendees to snap a picture or video during a live event: think “quirky,” “sensational” or even “colorful.” If you apply these adjectives to elements of a live event, they will inspire people to pull out their cameras. This is what is known as creating “shareable moments.”

People — “influencers,” especially — want to share unique, eye-catching photos that will bring in the most “likes.” This is evident in the staggering, frantically replicated success of the budding “made-for-Instagram” museums that are selling out across the country. These “museums” are often rainbow colored, visually intriguing and accommodating for anyone looking to take a selfie.

In a TED Talk last year, Jia Jia Fei, Director of Digital at the Jewish Museum of New York, plainly laid out the attitude of the moment in contrast to that of yesterday.

“In the pre-digital photography era, the message was: This is what I’m seeing. I have seen,” Fei said. “Today, the message is: I was there. I came, I saw, and I selfied.”

Of course, the obvious truth of the matter is that it’s difficult to calculate just how much attendee social sharing will impact your bottom line. The best plan of action is to start small when it comes to investing in creating “shareable moments,” assess impact, and then adjust your level of investment accordingly. It’s also crucial to learn from peers’ successes (and failures) when it comes to weaving shareable moments throughout live events.

The important thing to remember is that marketing no longer stops when the show starts. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of social media’s potential, and having discussions about how to best leverage it is the best place to start expanding reach and, ultimately, boosting attendance.

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