Events such as the Law Awards are an ideal time to ramp up your social media presence. Your audience is not only targeted and relevant, they’re also highly engaged, which provides you with an excellent opportunity to increase your profile as a leading voice in the industry.

To help you make the most of the awards night, we’ve put together some best practice tips. Having invested in getting this far, these simple, tried and tested tips will really help you leverage your nomination and maximise your exposure and efforts. Broken down into ‘pre-event’, ‘event-live’ and ‘post-event’ sections, we have summarised some effective practical steps for successfully leveraging your social media presence over the coming week.

Pre-event

Perhaps the most underutilised communication window in both traditional and digital marketing is the period in the immediate lead-up to an event. The high anticipation leads to a propensity to engage, so give your audience something to talk about.

Start by using the award night’s hashtag (#LawAwardsAu) in your posts so that they are easily found and shared. With hashtags now ubiquitous across all major social media platforms, don’t be afraid to share them on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and yes, even LinkedIn.

This takes us to the next point. Managing all your social media platforms. It’s vital to ensure your business accounts have been set up correctly to allow you to quickly post and comment on both personal and business accounts from your smartphone. You won’t have the luxury of a desktop experience during the event so test and tweak your settings before the week is out.

Once you’re familiar with the hashtag and your accounts set up, you’re ready to join the conversation. Use countdowns, reply to relevant tweets, mention the categories or nominees you’re looking forward to seeing. If you’re stuck for ideas, ask a question. Tweet about a sponsor or the venue, professionals are looking for an opportunity to connect, so make it easy (all the while using #LawAwardsAu).

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Event live

Real-time updates from the awards will breathe life into your social media accounts. Get tapping with live updates of the MC, nominees, winners and, most importantly, your thoughts.

Has anything odd or funny happened, what’s caught your attention? Remember, while it’s important to maintain integrity online, especially as a professional services firm, it’s also vital to let your personality as a business and individual shine when on social media.

One great way to do this is by sharing insightful or inspiring quotes from speakers, announcers and award winners. Bite-sized bits of wisdom are not only popular but they are likely to get shared, exposing you to audiences you did not previously have access to.

And, of course, when in doubt, post a picture. The Lawyers Weekly Australian Law Awards have always been a grand affair, the venue is stunning, the food divine and the company, impeccable. From the MC to the décor, to your colleagues’ snappy outfits – images are immediately engaging and highly shareable which make them perfect posts for the night.

Post-event

The festivities may be over, but the conversation doesn’t have to end. Ensure that you continue to engage, follow and reach out to others who were engaged and active during #LawAwardsAu.

These are the people and businesses who understand social [media] and who can help you towards building a network of complementary social media followers.

Nicole Shelley is an operations manager at Pepper IT. She has a diverse and broad corporate background, having held finance, strategic planning, operational management and practice management roles for top-tier global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. Nicole is responsible for the smooth running of Pepper IT and provides project management for each of Pepper IT’s mid to large scale projects. In addition to this, Nicole manages the marketing and social media team.