Social Media is everywhere you turn. There are hashtags on your favorite shows (http://www.lostremote.com/2011/04/21/twitter-hashtags-appearing-on-fox-shows/), people are spending about eight hours a month on Facebook (http://mashable.com/2011/09/30/wasting-time-on-facebook/) and it seems like every restaurant is asking you to check-in for special deals.

These all may work great in the “virtual” world, but how do you take online to your offline events? Here are four easy ways to make your next event social.

Social from the get-go
If you want your event to be more social, start it in a social way. Maybe allow attendees to register early or register with a discount if they re-tweet a post. Maybe you even announce the event on Facebook.

At the bare minimum, have an event posting on Facebook and encourage the attendees to RSVP on Facebook. This does a couple of things:

1. Allows attendees to see who else will be there.
2. Create momentum for the event. The event, if enough people register, will snowball – the more people that RSVP, the more people will see the event and want to register and so on.
3. Create a community around the event. Once people have RSVP’ed, you’ll see all sorts of interesting things happen. We’ve seen people put together carpools and decide on the “after party” – all from the wall of the Facebook event.

Allow people to “follow” the event
Everyone wants to be a part of something, even if they can’t physically be there. One great thing you can do for your next event is create a “hashtag” for the event. A hashtag is simply the “#” sign in front of a sort phrase. Anyone can then “follow” a hashtag to see what’s happening. For example South By Southwest’s hashtag is #SXSW, and anyone can follow along. This is important because:

1. It allows there to be a unified way to “follow” an event. Without it, there would be no way of seeing all of the content from an event.
2. It allows users who aren’t physically there to follow along. This is an important audience to remember because they are a prime audience for your next event. If they follow the event, there will be a good chance that they will be disappointed they did not go and will want to attend the next time around.
3. It allows attendees to connect to one another. By having a hashtag, you can see what others are posting. Most people tweeting will follow the hashtag and then follow the  people posting that hashtag. This makes it extremely easy to meet them “IRL” – “In Real Life.”

Use Location Based Service
Around 25% of Americans have used a location-based service in the past year (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/25_of_american_adults_use_location-based_services.php). While that number may seem small, it’s important to note that most of these users are highly connected and influential among their group of friends. Some of the top location-based services are: Facebook (and their Places function), Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp. Here are a couple location-based ideas to integrate into your next event:

1. Encourage users to “Check-in” (that’s what it’s called when a user shares their geographic location) to the event. This is free publicity. Most location-based services allow you to create an event (instead of checking into the generic location). Make sure to create an event so you can get the free advertising.
2. Suggest nearby restaurants and things to do to users that have “checked-in”. You can even offer a coupon for those that check-in.

Social Follow-Up
Were there some great moments from your event? Of course there were. Here’s how to share it afterward:

1. Create a great video that shares the highlights. Make the video so compelling that attendees want to share it with their friends.
2. Send an email to attendees with instruction on how to keep the spirit of the event going. This will, obviously, depend on the event — but be creative. Did you have a conference? Encourage the speakers to send new material to the attendees. Did you have a fundraiser? Continue to post new findings and ways people can help the cause.

While there are many, many ways to make your next event social, these are just four quick ways your next event can be social. Be on the lookout for more posts on event marketing and social media.