The main thing that makes hackathons so successful are the participants. No matter what preparations you make, hackathons are only as good as the participants that you manage to bring in. This is why you’ll want to make it a point to prioritize promoting your event as failing to do so could literally hurt your event.
Now, this is easier said than done as promoting a hackathon can be quite tricky. The main reason for this is simple: there’s just no one way to go about marketing and promoting events. To help make this easier for you, we thought it would be useful to put together a list of tips that will help you get the word out about your event. If this is something that you’re interested in knowing more about, read on for five effective tips that will help you promote your hackathon.
Promote Your Hackathon Early
Before we discuss anything else, one of the best things you can do to promote your hackathon is to start getting the word out early. While we understand that you may be hesitant to do this as you may be worried people may end up forgetting about it, announcing early is one of the most effective ways to get more people to attend your event.
Announcing early lets people block off their calendars, which will ultimately result in an increased number of attendees. To add to this, starting early allows you to reach more people. The exposure alone makes promoting early well-worth your time and effort.
Utilize Social Media
Social media is more than just for endless scrolling. Social media is a powerful tool when it comes to promoting events. This is because social media platforms allow you to tap into their massive user base. By promoting your event on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, you’re maximizing your reach as these platforms have billions of users.
Granted, not all users will find your event relevant. Luckily, social media platforms allow you to make use of targeted ads that make it significantly more likely to connect with people who are interested in hackathons. When posting on social media, make sure you avoid wordy posts. Instead of text-heavy posts be sure to make use of images and videos to get the most out of your social media platforms.
Reach Out to Relevant Parties
Lastly, reaching out to relevant parties to let them know about your event will do wonders when it comes to increasing the number of attendees. Be sure to contact universities, incubators, accelerators, and startups so that you can personally invite like-minded individuals to your event. While this may seem overly simplistic, reaching out to these institutions will go a long way when it comes to having a successful event with many attendees.
Be Smart About Promoting Your Hackathon
Remember, you can’t always brute force your way into a solution. Sometimes working smart is just as important as working hard. This is especially true when it comes to promoting your event. At the end of the day, really planning things out and thinking things through will yield benefits for your event. Be sure to make use of the tips that we’ve listed above in order to get the most out of your event.
If you want help promoting your hackathon, we are here to help! Hackathon.com is the largest online hackathon community in the world. We’ve connected over 2000 hackathon organizers with our 10 million member innovators from all over the world. We also love to promote events through our blog and all of our social media channels. Have an event you’d like to get seen? Let us know!
