Eventstagram Takes On A Partner In Benelux

We at eventstagram keep ourselves in check my making sure we focus on our three key principles.

Looks. Our live Instagram slideshows will always look more beautiful, more consistent and more professional than any other alternatives.

Brains. We don't want to just be a pretty face. Our team are always innovating, and finding new features. We have already added moderation features for corporate events, the ability to customise slideshows with logos and colourways, and an array of animation options. We have loads more to come, and can't wait to get them finished.

Personality. Our service is really important to us. We treat each customer separately, and make sure we do everything we can to fulfill their needs. Let us know if you have any ideas, however impossible they may sound.

So in order to maintain our high levels of personality we have taken on a local partner in Benelux, to service our expanding trade in Belgium, Holland and Luxenbourg  Having a partner means that we benefit from local knowledge, be able to fulfil all our clients needs in their native language as well as being able to have face to face contact with major event management companies. 

Notion technologies is a well established internet marketing company that immediately saw the potential of eventstagram and our live Instagram slideshows. They have already begun marketing eventstagram in Holland, Belgium and Luxenbourg to directly to large scale events and project managers, whilst for the initial trial period eventstagram will remain servicing private, small scale customer through our own site. 

Here is their strategy for marketing the brand in Benelux - Blog

We look forward to a long and successful business relationship with our new partners in Belgium, Holland and Luxenbourg.  

Notion Technologies; 'Welcome to the team!'

What Makes A Great Instagram Photo?

As more and more events are becoming documented by photos, and more importantly by Instagram, the mobile photo sharing application, it is becoming vital to those seeking more followers to make sure their photos are 'likeable' and 'shareable'.

Event managers, wedding planners and party goers are no exception. In fact they need to be even more conscious about these rules:

1. Mix It Up

Now everyone wants to see some good food, but if all you do is take photos of your food then it isn't going to be the most engaging content for your audience. Make sure you focus on your event's theme but vary the type of images, type of filters and even colours that are used - be creative with your content. 

2. Photos Are Photos, Not Adverts

This Instagram photo from @vans is the epitome of  what shouldn't be tagged on Instagram. It's just an advert. The words are so small it makes you feel as though you are your granddad trying to interpret an ipad screen, the content isn't interesting and it is oh so obvious that all they want to do is sell to you.

This brand have taken an Instagram image of their stand before their launch at the Gadget Show. The basic photo is interesting to their clients, an exclusive peak at their set up, and a driver for customers to visit them:

Photo by @rhodzy

3. Let Your Customers Get To Know You

Photos are a fantastic way to let your customers into your business, and most importantly let them feel they part of the brand.

Take images of your staff like @Starbucks

Take a look at @stuloch 's photo of Mint wireless's boardroom:

Instagram is all about building customers, and taking photos are one of the best ways to engage your current and their wider network of followers, and turn them into customers.

It's the next big thing, so make sure your brand is interacting in the right way!

Rocking On With Instagram

The Event

Wednesday the 21st November's Rock On Awards in Montreal were an eclectic mix of fun filled activities, raucous games and alternative music. 

The perfect setting for a live Instagram slideshow to entertain the crowd (although the banned photos may have proved even more entertaining!) 

The Slideshow 

The live Instagram slideshow, powered by eventstagr.am, was a simple slideshow:

The photos were projected in real time onto a large blank wall at the back of the venue.

The Instagram Photos

Here are some of our favourite Instagram photos taken during the evening:

Photo by @sidleemtl

Photo by @blitzkriegnat

Photo by @vandaeva

The Best Wedding Photographers - Your Guests

A wedding isn't a wedding without a constant flow of photo taking. From professionals with their  oversized lenses to the pageboys and bridesmaids with their mobile phones, everyone wants a snap of the bride.

The good thing for Wedding organisers is that Brides and Grooms (or just Brides) also want lots of photos. In fact more often than not they want to see all the photos ever taken of themselves on their special day.

If you're looking for a photographer for a wedding that captures every angle, every moment and every kiss, then look no further than your guests. With the camera phones now being more common than a picture of a plate of food on Instagram, every guest will now be happily snapping away throughout the whole event.

By using eventstagram, these mobile phone images, taken on Instagram, can be streamed directly to a big screen, providing a live slideshow of all the photos your guests are taking. 

Here are some of the best and worst Instagram photos we could find:

5 Of The Best Wedding Instagram Photos

Photo by @gokercilogullari

Photo by @gokercilogullari

Photo by @pauloecida

Photo by @lililoft

Photo by @dan_shirado

5 Of The Worst Wedding Instagram Photos

Photo by @bibkaa

Photo by @pauloecida

Photo by @chelseagrove8

Photo by @emma7793

Photo by @mortthebushbaby

Don't Turn Into Your Mother - The Right Way To Use Social Media To Promote Your Event.

For those who don't understand the power of social media I often pose them the question:

'Are you most likely to listen to a friends recommendation, an experts advice or your mothers nagging?'

This mantra is key to understanding how to improve the social media exposure of your event. Social media is all about credibility and events need to become less of a nagging mother, and more of an aspirational friend.

Here are a few points on ways to achieve this:

1. Use your Customers Material

The days of writing your own reviews about events are more past it than Bruce Forsyth struggling to read the autocue on Strictly Come Dancing. When a customer logs onto Facebook, or Twitter or Instagram they are scanning to see what their friends are doing, what they have missed or what they should be doing next. 

So how can events use their crowds material?

Firstly they can encourage them to be more proactive on Social Media. Having a big screen with a promoted hashtag means that your crowds activity on social media can be assembled under one clear and continuous voice. 

Secondly you can reward your crowd for using your hashtag. By using a live Instagram slideshow you can create photo competitions providing an incentive for your audience to use your hashtag. 

2. Become Friends With Your Customers

Social networks were formed for friends to keep in touch with each other and that is still the primary object for their use. Brands and events have begun to muscle their way in on these friendly networks, but potential customers are wise to it and will only engage with your content if it is of benefit to them. 

Paddy Power is a great example of a company that has become a friend to their customer. Their updates are humorous  topical and more often or not something you want to share again with your own friends. Each post is a photo which makes the content easy and quick to understand.

Photos are a fantastic way of creating a casual and friendly relationship with your audience and non are prolific than Instagram. If you haven't already begun taking and sharing your photos of your wedding, festival, event or venue then your missing a massive opportunity to expand your market. 

3. Become An Information Source To Your Customers

If you can't be friends with your customers then at least become an expert source of information for them. Social media has grown so much that it is not only continuous status reel for your social network but it is also an update for your news, business, sport and leisure stories.

Now back to your mother. She can be a source of information, and most of the time she is right, but you don't necessarily want to hear it from her. Use other experts in the field to back up your claims. Re tweet interesting articles or stories, and start liking photos on Instagram that are relevant to your event.

Social media is absolutely vital for events of all types, shapes and sizes and the most important thing is that you start to get involved with it, even if sometimes you sound like your mother. 

Brewing Up A Storm; A Live Instagram Slideshow at ATX Home Brewing Event

The Event

ATX Brew Party hosted a cool, intimate Beer party last weekend and enlisted the help of eventstagram to display a live Instagram feed of their friends.

With over 100 guests in attendance there were, non-physical, Instagram brawls to get their photos displayed onto the screen first!

The Slideshow 

The live Instagram slideshow, powered by eventstagr.am, was our standard theme, giving a professional feel to the event. 

The photos were displayed in real time on a TV screen placed in the bar area of the event.

Photo by @ john_games

The Instagram Photos

Here are some of our favourite Instagram photos taken during the evening:

Photo by @homebrews

Photo by @bruwench

Photo by @clink1978

The Testimonial

'Event went great. Photos were tagged using #atxbrewparty. Everyone loved the app and many said they would be using it soon for their events.'

Christian Lavender (CEO at Niche Stores)

Are You In The Events Industry? How Venues Can Improve By Acting As Events.

Lots of venues have never admitted they are in the events industry. 

Bars, nightclubs, theme parks, cinemas and restaurants often live their lives believing they are mere members of the entertainment industry. This may be true, but void of the events industry they are not. 

My (and more importantly Google's) definition states an event to be:

e·vent/iˈvent/

Noun:

A thing that happens, esp. one of importance A planned public or social occasion.

Well, if that vague definition is correct then the events industry is even more vast than eventstagram initially imagined.  We fully believe that these so called entertainment industry members host mini events every single day and night.

Lets take a nightclub for example. Each afternoon they prepare their club for the arrival of multiple guests to celebrate a planned important occasion. A restaurant is the same, as is a theme park or a cinema. 

So, if a venue is really an event what can it do to maximise it's marketing:

1. Make each event unique

Technology is a great way to add a new touch each event without having to redecorate the venue each night. Eventstagram's Instagram slideshows are live, and are filled with images from the event attendees. This means each evening the content on the screen is completely unique. 

2. Use social media to attract new customers

Event marketeers are savvy to the huge benefits that great social media marketing can provide their event. Venues need to treat separate events as separate marketing projects. 



Eventstagram's live Instagram slideshows include instruction slides which promote hashtags for events. 

By using these hashtags, the crowd upload their Instagram photos to Instagram and other social media with the name of venues event. 


This gives them a wide social media promotion, and hopefully encourages peers of their current customers to feel as if they have missed out.  

3. Make your venue a brand

Events build their reputation around consistently servicing a niche. Venues can do the same thing. 

'Hypocrite!' I hear you shout, you just told us to market each event differently. 

Now here is the skill. Your venue is a brand that needs to be consistent, but the events you host allow you to change your personality, and focus on a different niche. We can maximise this with our Instagram slideshows. 

The brand of your venue is modern, innovative and fun, so perfectly suited to having live Instagram photos on display. However, one of your events may be a wedding whilst another may be a 21st Birthday party. 

Using our Platinum package we can re-brand the slideshows to allow a quick moving, brightly designed slideshow for a 21st but a professional, smooth running and subtle background for the wedding. 

So remember, your venue isn't just a venue. It's an event organiser, planner and most importantly it's an event marketer. 

Gold, Silver and Bronze; Eventstagr.am Launches It's Product Range

Eventstagrammers, 

Today is a big day for us.

Whilst you have been busy creating some awesome eventstagram slideshows, we have been frantically working on lots of new features.

Here's what we have been up to:

Unlimited Free Trials

We have now made it easier for you to instantly trial a live hashtag with our new demo:

Credits

Eventstagr.am is now operated on a credit system. Each member gets enough credits to run a Bronze slideshow for free and this is automatically renewed each month.

Credits are simple to purchase and once you have enough you will be given instant access to the additional features. For regular eventstagram users we sell them in discounted bundles to make each event even better value. 

Bronze Package

We have replaced the current free slideshows with a Bronze Package. 

Don't worry, this is still free of charge and still playable for 1 hour. But now you can quickly and easily extend the slideshow by adding credits to your account.

Silver Package

Our Silver Package gives you the chance to log in and ban unwanted photos that appear on your slideshow. It lasts for 6 hours and can show up to 1000 photos in our beautiful eventstagram theme. 

This is where your 30 free credits becomes of use - you are now nearly halfway towards gaining access to this package. 

We still have lots more to come and are constantly working on new ways to extend and improve our service. If you have any suggestions or want to ask any questions we would love to hear from you - send us a tweet @eventstagram or an email on info@eventstagr.am.

I hope you are able to give these features a go and that eventstagr.am continues to entertain your guests, transform the backdrop to your event and build your events social media impact, 

Yours,

The Eventstagram Team. 

Live Instagram Photos at Lukes Bar Mitzvah

The Event

Luke Roths Bar Mitzvah was planned and managed by Endless Entertainment. This was no normal Bar Mitzvah and the team at Endless Entertainment took it to the next level to ensure it was a huge success.

One of the major innovations they incorporated was eventstagr.ams live Instagram slideshow. 

The team at Hello Endless have become regular users of the eventstagr.am photo display software, so for this Bar Mitzvah we offered them our prototype 3D cube Instagram slideshow. 

The Hello Endless team cleverly selected a Hashtag that was simple, self promoting and specific to Lukes Bar Mitzvah. 

The feedback was awesome. The team were over the moon with the reaction to the live Instagram photos and they continue to see a rise in their social media exposure from each event. 

The Slideshow

The Instagram slideshow, powered by eventstagr.am, was a 3D cube and was shown on a large projector screen behind the dance floor:

Photo by @mi55_coco

The Instagram Photos



Here are some of our favourite Instagram photos taken during the evening:

Photo by @ jlhfarnham

Photo by  @mi55_coco

Photo by @mckaelenelliot3

Photo by @helloendless

The Testimonial

 'Eventstagr.am was a huge hit once again at our mitzvah. The 3D added a bit of energy as well. We have begun telling all of our clients about it, and they have been going crazy over it!'

Will Curran (President at Endless Entertainment, Youth Entertainment Managers)

Hashtagging: How To Maximise The Exposure Of Your Events Instagram Slideshows

I sometimes reminisce about what life was like without hashtags. 

In years to come will we be telling our grandchildren about the difficulties of life when we couldn't group our social media? About how we had to struggle through a day trying to discover what the world was taking Instagram photos of? And how we had to actually read tweets before we discovered the days breaking news. 

Events around the world are using our live Instagram slideshows to display photos under a specific hashtag. Event managers devise their own hashtag but we want to give them some tips on how to make sure it displays the best Instagram photos, and gives their event or brand the most publicity:

Search     

Before you decide to promote your hashtag take some time to research it. Firstly, type it into Google, see if there is anyone else using it, if it has any other meanings or if your crowd are already talking about it. 

Then do the same thing using hashtags.org, this gives you some great stats on its recent use, related tweets, definitions and alternative hashtags. 

Short

Event managers can promote their hashtag to their crowd using eventstagr.ams live Instagram slideshow. 

Although they can customise the Instruction slide, as well as selecting how often it is shown, hashtags still have to be simple. The best hashtags are short, easy to remember, and even easier to spell. 

Specific

We know that live Instagram slideshows are great tools to engage audiences at any event, from weddings and parties through to conferences and festivals, however the more specific the hashtag the more engaging the content will be on screen, and the more interested the public will be in the tag. 

Subtle

Audi created one of the most successful hashtags in twitter history without mentioning Audi. 

When a persistent Audi fan began tweeting #wantanR8 they decided to turn up at her house and give her the car. They Instagrammed the pictures, videoed the footage and tweeted about it. Not only that but they bought a promoted hashtag on Twitter #wantanR8too and gave away 5 more cars.

#WantAnR8 has received over 100,000,000 impressions. It links directly to Audi without actually mentioning the brand. It's credible, specific to Audi and interesting to users.

It probably doesn't keep everyone awake at nights, but for the team at eventstgr.am the hashtag is an important subject. 

The transformation of the almost obsolete character, into a hip, young and modern tool is fascinating, and event managers need to ensure they maximise the social media potential of their event with a short, subtle and specific hashtag.