After party: how to recap your business event across social media.

• Author: Olson, Pamela M.
• Position: MEETING & EVENT: PLANNING GUIDE

All your planning and hard work has paid off. Your business luncheon (or awards banquet or product launch) was a success. Everyone who attended is singing the praises of your company. This is all good, but you can get a lot more mileage from the event, even after it's over, through strategic and powerful use of social media.

"Recapping an event is an important part of wrapping it up, but it's also an important part of planning for your next event," says Janet Jorgensen, a marketing consultant and advertising strategist based in Salt Lake City.

The key is to engage those who participated in or supported your event, connect them through social media and extend the event as an experience, something attendees can easily share, which raises awareness of your company and of future events. There are a few simple, impactful ways to accomplish this.

Gratitude

Create a sense of inclusion and foster good will for future events by sharing one "umbrella" photo that sums up the event and then by thanking everyone involved, using targeted hashtags and tagging integral participants.

"Thank the sponsors, event benefactors, in-kind donors and/or attendees," says Jorgensen. "How to decide who gets an individual post vs. a group post is up to you, but major donors, sponsors and high-profile attendees deserve some sincere undiluted gratitude." Include the venue, caterer, event planner, entertainment, etc. in your thanks if these companies were keys in pulling everything together.

Hashtags

Hashtags are a simple, powerful tool--nothing more than a virtual conduit or "filing" system, but they can be shockingly easy to get wrong. When tagging your photos and event on Instagram, hashtags should be unique, simple and to the point, says Nicholas Giustino, social media strategist with Penna Powers. "You want to ensure the audience can easily use it and that it's trackable across all channels for measurement," he says.

It's important that the hashtag is not already in use, adds Giustino. "This can lead to issues with other brands or something with a negative connotation."

Jorgensen, self-proclaimed "hashtag queen," emphasizes that hashtags continue the sense of inclusion by creating online involvement at your...