Turning Event Attendees Into UGC Creators

March 3, 2021

Believe it or not, every single person that attends your events is an influencer.

You read that right: every single person that attends your events — regardless of their follower count, social engagement percentages, or even their presence on social media itself — can be turned into an influencer for your event.

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to get popular Instagram “influencers” at your event to drive interest in your product. Aside from it being a colossal waste of money, it can also be a colossal waste of time — what would be the point of spending $10,000 on an “influencer marketing campaign” if they’re only going to bring in $1,000 worth of business?

But by turning all your event’s attendees into influencers, you can efficiently market your company — and your future events — without breaking the bank.

Here’s how!

Influencers Are Your Free Sales Funnels

Granted, COVID has completely decimated the live events industry in 2020. But in 2021 and beyond — as things slowly return back to “normal,” whatever your definition of that is — hosting live, in-person events is the perfect opportunity to turn your customers into influencers…which are, in essence, your free sales funnels.

Every person wants to feel special and valued. It’s human nature.

Treating every person who walks through your event doors like a celebrity — making them feel special and valued — is the surest way to not only keep them engaged, but to spread the word by whatever means necessary. Whether their preferred method of promotion is word-of-mouth, social media, or even an email campaign, it’s important to remember that people may forget what you said to them, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.

Photos Are Your Greatest Tool

Thanks to the nature of digital photography, taking pictures at events has become an easy — and inexpensive! — way to engage your “influencers” (attendees) and make them feel important. Whether your event involves dog-washing or a five-star, five-course meal, taking pictures of your attendees and encouraging them to share on their social media (usually with a customized hashtag) will not only drive your business and sales, but make your attendees feel special.

Tell them to share their experiences. What did they like about what you did? How did they feel while doing it?

No social media? No problem! Studies show that people will gladly — and privately — share photos with others that they trust, even if they don’t blast them all over social media. The key, of course, is to make people feel both special and comfortable while doing so!

How Can Waldo Photos Help Your Micro-Influencer Efforts?

The process of treating every customer like an influencer is known as micro-influencer efforts. And each of these efforts, however big or small, is incredibly visual in its execution.

Most social media platforms (like Twitter) prioritize visual content. Other social media platforms, like Instagram and Pinterest, are strictly visual in their nature.

Either way, this proves that photos aren’t just important to micro-influencer efforts — they’re essential.

And that’s where Waldo Photos comes in.

The fact is, we know you’re too busy to tag every single person that comes to your event — and to share every single photo with every single person that comes to your event. But we know that you want to get the maximum value from the event photos your photographer takes at your event as well as the photos your attendees take.

Here at Waldo, we increase the value of event photography and create buzz around your event, while enhancing and increasing your brand awareness and customer experience.

How do we do that?

Waldo delivers high-quality, branded photos to your guests in near real-time — and in so doing, they amplify your event across social media. More awareness and digital word of mouth will translate into more sponsorship sales opportunities, more ticket sales, and raise more money in the case of charity events. Fan-driven engagement also improves future ticket sales and repeat customers.

Waldo is feature-packed with a suite of products that combine to accelerate your event’s photo management and marketing efforts.

Photo Manager

Host and organize all your photos, videos, and blog posts with advanced searching, tagging, and security features and allows you to easily crowdsource photos from your attendees with publishing moderation and control. On top of that, enjoy automated branding and hashtagging on your attendee’s photo downloads and social shares which turn your community into your event’s biggest voice on social media as they share photos directly from your gallery. 

Photo Finder

Waldo’s Photo Finder is where the magic happens. Using proprietary facial recognition, Waldo sifts and sorts your event photos automatically, and delivers photos of your attendees directly to their mobile phones in near real-time. This drives engagement and posting. Only a small percentage, maybe 3 – 5% will wade through an online gallery days later trying to find their photo whereas 95% will engage with a photo texted to them. And without the lag time of normal event photo delivery, your attendees are more likely to share your brand on social media.

Member Connect

Waldo provides you with a state-of-the-art way to send push notifications and mobile alerts directly to your attendees with important information. You can also send personalized Waldogram postcards to your attendees featuring great photos of them from your events or a reminder to purchase tickets for your next event.

Sign up today and receive a free 30 day trial of Photo Manager and 250 free Photo Finder credits!