Yet another perk of living in Southern California: weekend-long festivals built around magical things. Case in point: the 30th Annual Avocado Festival, just one of several avocado-themed festivals held in California.
Team AG hurried to Carpinteria to explore the festival (our first) and spent the day sampling guacamole, tasting avocado beer and perusing avocado-themed wares from local vendors.
As people in the digital marketing/social media space, however, we couldn't just leave it at that. So, here are 3 takeaways we thought you might find interesting.
3 Takeaways from #AvoFest
- Passionate Fans = Lots of Opportunities to Build Brand Affinity
Similar to what we saw at #BeautyconLA this summer, the Avocado Festival (AvoFest) attendees are obviously obsessed with avocados and that means plenty of ways to activate that passion.
One of the simplest ways to do this is interact with fans across social media. Liking, commenting and sharing user-generated content (UGC) is not only profitable but can communicate to fans the brand's desire to facilitate conversation. Plus, a simple comment or regram from an official organization account can be immensely rewarding for the average event go-er.
- Establish Short, Easy-to-use Hashtags—Then Use Them Everywhere
When we checked out what visitors and fans were posting on social media we found a lot of pieces of content without a single hashtag used by all (or most). Which means there were many pieces of conversation that were lost.
How to solve? Simple: Set one hashtag, promote it across every piece of marketing collateral and use it consistently.
Consumers are smart enough to know how to use hashtags when posting their own content, and giving them the tools to make it easier to be part of a larger conversation is a total win-win.
- Photos Live Forever. Why Not Integrate Your Story Into Visitors' Life Stories?
AvoFest had numerous photo opps throughout the festival area (signs, photo cut-out frames, etc), and visitors were snapping those all day. The festival did a good job of using a consistent aesthetic and including the event logo across these photo opps.
Taking that a step further, event marketers can consider including hashtags, official handles and even special elements exclusive to that event (e.g., limited-edition posters, special or one-time features) as part of a photo setting. This can be a very effective way to not only reinforce the "special-ness" of the event, but truly extend the day's memories—and the event's branding—for a lifetime.
Whew! What a fun way to spend a weekend and we can’t wait to go next year.
Check out our pics and Snapchat Story below, and let us know what you think in the comments!