Events are a timeless opportunity for brands to build connections and brand awareness and bring in new customers. Even today, with social media and influencer marketing ruling the marketing realm, event marketing still holds a special place.

So, if you are planning to add events to your marketing mix(as you must), we are here with an insider strategy to market your events and make the best out of your social media marketing efforts: social media walls for events.

A 'free social wall' option is available, allowing users to create and manage social media feeds without incurring costs. This is particularly beneficial for those looking to consolidate and display their social media content effectively.

We start with reasons to convince you about the benefits of social walls, move to different types of social media walls, examples of social media walls for events, and end with a step-by-step guide on how to add social walls to event screens with Flockler.

But first, let’s start with the basics and before that, here's a quick reminder of how Flockler can help.

In this blog, we’ll show you how social wall embedding happens in just six quick steps (as promised, with no tech skills required), but first, you’ll learn more about social walls.

What is a live social media wall

A live social media wall or live social wall is a real-time display of social media feeds from multiple social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The content for the wall is pulled using hashtags, mentions, account handles, and keywords with a social media aggregator. Live social media walls are best for events to display video bytes from your events, behind the scenes videos, quotes from speakers, and attendee posts.

Why should you use a social media wall for events

Here are some of the top benefits of using a social media wall for events:

Displaying user generated content from various social media channels enhances audience interaction and creates a sense of community around brands and events.

1. To boost attendee participation

A live social wall with attendee-generated content is the quickest and easiest way to drive up your event engagement. Content like pictures and videos from the events, tweets on sessions, speakers and their overall experience are perfect for this. You can also use this content to create FOMO in inactive attendees and nudge them to contribute.

With social media walls, you can bridge the gap between virtual and in-person attendees in a hybrid event. By linking social media accounts to create interactive social walls, you can aggregate content from various platforms, enhancing audience engagement. By displaying social media content from various social platforms, you can give your in-person attendees a peek into what their virtual counterparts are up to. Similarly, posting live content from the event location on social platforms can make your virtual attendees feel closer and more involved.

2. To aggregate event content

Social media walls are a great place to aggregate and showcase a social feed, which is a collection of live social media content aggregated from various platforms, during your event. To create more event content, run hashtag campaigns and incentivize attendees who use these hashtags on their social media posts. You can then pull this content and display it on screens and jumbotrons during your events.

These walls are also best to keep your attendees entertained as they update in real-time. This means that every time a new post gets added with the event hashtag to a social platform, it gets displayed on the wall as well.

3. For gamification and attendee engagement

Incorporating games using a social media display wall helps entertain your audience and prevents them from getting distracted during events. With a social media display wall, you can showcase real-time social media feeds, display finalists of hashtag contests, and post cues for social wall bingo and questions for trivia games. You can also use social walls to involve attendees in decision-making by asking them to vote during photo contests.

You can further boost participation and heighten engagement by displaying leaderboards on your social walls. With social walls, track the most active participants, feature their content and give them the recognition they deserve. This creates a sense of competitiveness in participants and encourages even inactive ones to participate.

What are the Different Types of Social Media Walls for Events

When it comes to enhancing your event with a social media wall, there are several types to choose from, each offering unique benefits and engagement opportunities:

• Live Social Walls: These walls display real-time social media posts from various platforms, creating an immersive and dynamic experience for attendees. By pulling in live updates, you can keep the content fresh and engaging, showcasing the latest tweets, Instagram posts, and Facebook updates as they happen.
   

• Interactive Social Walls: Take engagement to the next level with interactive social walls. These allow attendees to interact with the content directly, whether by voting on their favorite posts, commenting, or sharing their own experiences. This type of wall fosters a sense of community and participation, making attendees feel more involved in the event.
   

• Curated Social Walls: Sometimes, a more controlled approach is needed. Curated social walls display a handpicked selection of social media posts, often chosen by event organizers or sponsors. This ensures that only the most relevant and high-quality content is shown, aligning perfectly with the event’s theme and goals.
   

• Hashtag Social Walls: Perfect for creating a branded experience, hashtag social walls display posts tagged with a specific event hashtag. This not only encourages attendees to use the hashtag but also aggregates all related content in one place, providing a comprehensive view of the event’s social media buzz.
   

• Video Social Walls: For a more dynamic and engaging experience, video social walls display social media videos. Whether it’s live streams, behind-the-scenes clips, or attendee-generated videos, this type of wall adds a visual and interactive element that can captivate your audience.

What are the different types of social media walls for events

Here are the 4 different types of social media walls you can use during your events:

Using digital displays in conjunction with social walls can effectively showcase user-generated content and foster audience engagement, enhancing the overall experience for attendees.

1. Attendee-generated event content wall

A social wall with content generated by attendees sharing their event experiences is a great addition to your event marketing arsenal. You can create this type of wall by requesting attendees to share their experiences through Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and then display them on event screens. You can also use these walls to showcase previous event's content to give attendees a taste of what they've signed up for.

2. Speaker wall to introduce speakers

Creating a custom social media wall for every speaker in your event is an engaging way to educate your audience about your speakers and their expertise. For this, you can carefully curate a social wall with posts from social media platforms showcasing their work and contributions. For example, if one of your guests is a top voice in marketing, you can pull posts from Twitter and LinkedIn that demonstrate their expertise. You can also include posts from their followers using hashtags or keyword mentions to build their credibility.

3. Gamified social media wall

Using social media walls to play games during events helps break the monotony and entertain the audience. For instance, conducting a social media trivia game where you post questions related to sessions on walls and collect answers through social media is an effective way to ensure participation and engagement. You can also spice it up a little bit by displaying a leaderboard for the most active participants.

4. Hashtag social media wall for event content aggregation

Hashtag social media walls are your best friend if you want to aggregate event content from various social media channels and present it to your audience during events. For this first pick event-specific hashtags and run campaigns to generate enough UGC across social channels. Then gather these posts using these hashtags with a social media aggregator and display them on your event screens. With different content formats from various social media platforms captured by diverse people, hashtag social walls let you display every facet of the event to your audience.

Best social wall examples for events

Now that you know the types of social media walls, let’s take a look at how brands from various industries are using social walls for their events:

Integrating and displaying a social media feed from various platforms can significantly enhance audience engagement, showcase user-generated content, and foster community interactions.

1. Harvard University - Social wall for ceremonies and sports events

Harvard University uses a social wall to showcase content related to its various ceremonies and sports events. For ceremonies like welcome days and convocations, they ask students and parents to share their special moments using hashtags on social media and later display them on websites and display screens. They also showcase content this way during sports events by nudging the audience to share their match experience.

2. FIFA Museum - Live-updating Instagram wall for events

FIFA Museum, run by the FIFA organization, engages its audience during events using a social wall. They use Flockler to pull content from Instagram using their account handle and hashtags and display them as a slideshow on their event screens and jumbotrons. The Instagram wall displays around 15 slides that auto-update as and when new posts appear on Instagram. This helps boost fan engagement and drives more attendees to post content.

How to add a social wall to event screens and jumbotrons?

With Flockler, you can add social walls to event screens and jumbotrons in less than 120 seconds. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to do it:

1. Log in to Flockler and pick a social media platform from the list.

You can gather content from major platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and RSS feeds.

2. Choose the content type and content source.

You can create feeds with images, videos, reels, or tweets and can gather content from your branded account handles as well as third-party accounts through mentions, keywords and hashtags.

3. Moderate content if necessary and select a layout for display.

Flockler offers 4 major layouts: Grid, Slideshow, Social Wall and Carousel, to showcase content. Choose the one that best fits your needs for maximum engagement. For instance, for speaker introductions, a Slideshow layout is better than any other as this way, attendees can read through each post in detail.

4. Customize the social wall to match your event branding

With Flockler, you can alter the social wall's size, font and color to ensure it fits well with the other event branding elements.

5. Copy and embed the code to your event screens

You can display the social media wall on event screens and jumbotrons in your preferred layout.

Prepping your Social Wall for Events

Customizing your social wall is crucial to ensure it aligns with your event’s branding and enhances the attendee experience. Here are some effective ways to tailor your social wall:

• Branding: Incorporate your event’s logo, colors, and fonts to create a cohesive and recognizable brand identity. This helps in reinforcing your brand and making the social wall an integral part of the event’s visual theme.
   

• Layout: Choose from various layout options such as grid, list, or carousel to display your social media posts. Each layout offers a different way to present content, so select the one that best fits your event’s needs and aesthetic.
   

• Filters: Use filters to select specific social media platforms, hashtags, or keywords to display on your wall. This allows you to control the content flow and ensure that only relevant posts are showcased.
   

• Moderation: Implement moderation tools to approve or reject social media posts before they appear on your wall. This helps maintain the quality and appropriateness of the content, ensuring a positive experience for all attendees.
   

• Analytics: Utilize analytics tools to track engagement, views, and other metrics. This data can provide valuable insights into how attendees are interacting with the social wall and help measure the success of your social media strategy.

Final Thoughts

Social media marketing is non-negotiable when it comes to marketing events, and social walls help amplify the results of social media marketing in a cost-effective manner. By collecting and aggregating content from various social channels like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook using hashtags, you can make your events more fun, engaging and boost attendee participation.

So, if your next event is around the corner add a social wall using Flockler and let us know how it goes.

FAQs

• What are Twitter walls for events?

Twitter walls for events display content from Twitter (now X) on digital screens, jumbotrons and event signages. You can gather content for the Twitter walls using a social media aggregator by hashtags, account handles, mentions and keywords.

• Why do you need a social wall for events?

An event social wall helps you actively engage your audience and boost their participation. It also helps you establish a connection between in-person and virtual attendees by displaying social media posts on event screens.