Running TEDxBrighton as a voluntary event means a
very lean budget and for that reason, the majority of our marketing efforts have been powered by social media and none more-so than the
TEDxBrighton Twitter. This simple, one off, insignia [@TEDxBrighton] has helped us spread the word about the event, monitor conversation and develop a community across Twitter, Instagram and Vine.
Here are a few ways we used Twitter for our event:
In the lead up to the event, we held an open forum to discuss the potential theme for the event which was facilitated online by a live social media manager (
Liam Walters) who tweeted out questions and quotes throughout the night.
Here’s a quick Storify we pulled together for anyone who missed out so you can see what some of that discussion looked like:
We also had the upmost privilege to have worked with a
talented bunch of local graffiti artists who adorned the electricity boxes around Brighton with the letters of our event title “Pass it On” – encouraging members of the public to go out and find all of them. On each box, we required the artists to put the @TEDxBrighton username in the TED branded font, but aside from that, they had free reign to represent the letter and ideas in their own style and voice. These artworks proved to be fantastic publicity as new audiences came across them and subsequently searched for us on Twitter.
During the event, we collaborated with a new enterprise called
Storystream and video production company, Fat Sand, who helped produce a live online narrative out of all of the social media content produced over the course of the event. It was a really fantastic way of getting the public and audience discussing the talks and ideas of the event in a very reactive, dynamic environment — we also had a giant motion version of the platform on our screen during the intervals. Delegates loved seeing their tweets, images and videos projected onto the big screen and it encouraged them to respond to others.
You can still take a look at the TEDxBrighton Storystream
here.
