In this bizarre age, so full of unforeseen events, it can happen that an extraordinarily content-rich event (such as festivals dedicated to literature or film) fails to express itself fully through its communication channels, often resulting in content that is ineffective and communicatively weak.
In most cases, this happens because event organizers prefer to devote most of their efforts to the practical needs of the event, which are truly endless. Setting up the spaces, organizing the lectures and guest invitations, and managing the refreshment areas and security during the event, with some residual anti-Covid restrictions always caused some problems.
Beyond organizational efforts
All this requires endless efforts, on this we all agree, but nowadays the most ambitious events (and especially those that are characterized by their international scope) need communication coverage that is up to the mark, a qualified staff that follows the various stages of the events and publishes appropriate content on social media, thus making it perfectly understandable even for the international audience the general progress of the event, its climaxes, thus stimulating their interest and curiosity.
An effective post, or a particularly apt video pill, could prompt a foreign person to book a flight and buy a ticket to the next edition of the event, scheduled perhaps for the following year. This would be an exceptionally valuable conversion because it would be linked not so much to the quality of the product or service offered (i.e., the festival in its entirety), but to the image of what one wants to sell, appropriately conveyed and disseminated through the new means of online communication.
With different management of social media, even an extraordinary event such as the Birmingham Literature Festival could have grown further and imposed itself on the attention of the international public, thus attracting new participants and new slices of the public, perhaps even from abroad. Such an important event, capable of welcoming the best writers, artists, and thinkers on the British and international scene, needs elite communication, and optimal management that emphasizes the extraordinary symbolic and cultural value of the initiative, highlighting the most significant moments and the leading values that animate the event and its prestigious guests.
Opportunities to be seized
One aspect that could have been handled differently, certainly more functional for an event of this level, is certainly the publication of content on the event’s social media. The organizers decided to open three channels on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but then endorsed publishing the same content within each individual platform.
This choice is not only questionable but also highly limiting. Certain aspects of the festival, such as the more exquisitely emotional ones, could have been published only on Facebook, while the visual narrative of the initiative could have been entrusted mostly to Instagram. Posting the same content on different social media, in a way, can also have an alienating effect on the audience of each platform, which has long been accustomed to a certain kind of content and a specific grammar.
Twitter could have been used to make a series of original, humorous, and ironic content, perhaps as a direct response to tweets from writers or artists, thus increasing the chances that the content would go viral. It is perfectly useless to group the same kind of content on social media, for there are blogs and websites.
In fact, many brands nowadays have decided to accumulate different genres of content within their website, turning it into a multifunctional platform where the audience can find everything they need, in one place and in an extremely simple way.
It is a rationale used primarily by specialized brands that can also afford not to take full advantage of the firepower of social media, and who only care that their target audience finds everything they need within a mobile-friendly and extremely easy-to-use website.
This communication strategy has already been successfully employed by a number of brands specializing in online gambling and betting, which have managed to group together within a single platform the best sites and betting reviews, making use of the valuable services of a team of international-level tipsters.
This method, in addition to allowing each user to find exactly what they are looking for, also incredibly improves the user experience of the average user, making it smoother and much more pleasant. The large number of betting operators recommended by the site will also allow everyone to easily find the one that best suits their tastes by listing their offerings, services, and the best odds.
With the proper management of social media, even the most insignificant event can be turned into a memorable event that will never be forgotten.