Marketing for Scheduled Online Events

Question

Last year I started working with a team on our first major web project (We, the Pixels). I believe the idea is very solid, but it has a hard requirement for a group of people being on the site for the randomly scheduled events. We are having problems getting people to come and stay for these events.

What is the proper marketing approach needed to bring people to the site for these events? We have recently done the following in an attempt to fix the problem:

• Added email notification of new events being created
• Added privileges based on rank
• Added text throughout the site encouraging setting up the events in the future so other users can have time see that it exists.
• Gotten involved in with other communities that would find the site interesting in order to promote (market) the site
• Advertised using Google Adwords

Is there an standard marketing approach for such a case as this?

Answer 1

It sounds like social media campaigns might be the way forward in your case, Facebook events, Twitter hashtags, things like that - you not only want people who are already online, but have the time to check out your site for the event.

From looking at your site maybe you should make it easy for people to share that they have been on the site and contributed to something, this will encourage their friends to go on (again, this would be at the time of the event, given the nature of social media).

Answer 2

As @Toby says Social Media is probably the best place to start but there are also services like meetup, eventful, yahoo groups, linkedin groups, and meetin which are specifically designed for organizing social gatherings.