When using social media to promote your brand, you need to be careful about how much fun you are having with your profile and what content you’re posting. I don’t like to be too serious when it comes to my professional profile, but it’s necessary to keep things classy so that contacts and organizations see me as a serious event planner. It’s important to have a professional profile photo. Have someone take your photo instead of using a selfie, and I would recommend wearing a business casual outfit. This is not the time to use your girls night out photo as your profile pic, hint hint.
Make an effort to keep your posts relevant to your brand image. For instance, I could post a photo of a party that I went to over the weekend but center it around the table settings, décor, and theme of the event. I would also change your privacy settings so that friends can’t tag you in inappropriate pics or posts that could damage your reputation. We all like to have fun on the weekends, but your professional contacts don’t need to see pics of you dancing on the bar, taking shots, or making obscene hand gestures… whoops! So after you have your profile all decked out and professional looking, it’s time to network! Join some groups on LinkedIn that fit within your area of interest.
LinkedIn has many professional groups that event planners can join. The Event Planners and Coordinators group is open to anyone that works at providing the very best to the event industry. This group has over 73,000 members. BizBash is another group open to event professionals who are interested in sharing contacts, best practices, ideas, and resources. They have over 60,000 members. I would also suggest joining the Event Planning & Management Association Group. They are one of the top 3 largest global associations in the event planning and management industry with almost 50,000 members.