Event Social Media Presence Changes the Experience for Attendees
Music festivals are the ultimate party for many around the world. Social media has revolutionized the way people look at, attend, and participate in music festivals. They are not just places to go listen to music as Woodstock was in 1969. They are now a full experience and whoever does not attend is left with the fear of missing out. Ultra Music Festival is hosted annually in Miami. This EDM music festival reached its giant crowds and reputation through its successful use of social media platforms.
Ultra Music Festival is extremely present on social media always sharing content of past, present, or future events. It is primarily active on Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. These platforms are appropriate to its audience because they are used to share visual content as well as brief announcements to keep tabs on what is current with the event. The Ultra Music Festival videos have gone viral several times.
Ultra Music Festival uses its social media platforms to communicate and share different types of content and values. The first use of its social media platforms is marketing. The videos and photos created at the events go viral because the videography and photography quality is superb.
They are the best way to pull in their target audience and create that feeling of wanting to be there. A positive impulse around having to post your Ultra Music Festival photo and story has been fomented by their social media use. It is considered cool to dress extravagantly to the event even dress up as a fairy for example and post on your own social media profile. Also, Ultra communicates how much it values inclusion and diversity by showing in these videos all the people that bring their country’s flags to the festival.
Months before their annual event, they begin posting the talent lineup. They don’t do this all at once, but rather reveal one at the time and involve the audience in guessing who the next one will be by dropping hints and engaging in the online conversation.
Many times these talents are huge stars and will go on Ultra’s social media page and post some content themselves. They post several exclusive offers and discounts for people who buy their tickets up to a year early.
On the weekend of the event, Ultra is more involved on social media than ever. Not only do they provide several photo backdrops and sharing opportunities, but they also dress their staff in extravagant outfits for people to take photos with. Throughout the weekends, they live stream and tweet updates, as well as take people behind the scenes of the performances. Everyone who wants to be a part of this does not leave Ultra without posting a photo, using a geofilter, and including the hashtag. This makes it easy for Ultra to track and repost attendees’ stories and posts.
Customer service, reputation management, and social listening were all implemented on the festival’s social media platforms after their last event. The festival was to be hosted in a location that offered no close parking options, however, to compensate that, it had offered shuttle services for all attendees to the closest parking lots. However, when the festival ended, the shuttles never arrived leaving more than seven thousand attendees to walk more than twenty minutes. This sparked an outrage in the online community. The tickets to the festival are very expensive and people were using the hashtag: #FyreFestival angrily posting videos of their walk.
By listening to this hashtag, they were able to launch their crisis management of the issue online. Ultra Music Festival had to post an official apology on their pages in response along with a promise that they will be more organized in the future.
My suggestions for Ultra’s future social media use that they have not implemented yet include polls and surveys to get feedback post the event. Even though the shuttle mishap was able to be identified by implementing social listening, there could be other smaller issues that do not make that much noise and therefore without a poll or survey. Even though Ultra is very popular, giveaways where people tag their friends would create a tremendous word of mouth effect with very little cost. In order to maintain the audience engaged all year round a “Show Us Your Ultra in Order to Be Featured” post would spark conversation even six months after the event. Also, Tik Tok should be implemented in their social media strategy. A “Your Ultra Story” on Tik Tok would spark a lot of user generated content because everyone has and wants to share their epic Ultra memories.
