Each month, Kim hosts Events Club - a monthly meet up for event organizers, venues, community groups etc. that are involved with LGBTQIA+ events in some way. Last month's theme was Social Media, and we had content creator Florian to teach us all about making short-form video content.

The next Events Club is on Sunday 19th April 2026 from 2-5pm and the theme is Venues - so come along with your venue tips, or with your questions or venue woes - we will commiserate and help you find the space you need!

EVENTS CLUB - SOCIAL MEDIA ADVICE NOTES

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday as we gathered in Lucy’s flat (thank you Lucy) ready to learn about the simpler tricks to promote events on social media, as well as to get into the deep discourse about the ethics of these platforms (I’ll make a seperate post about this).

Florian was here to teach us - he does social media for his job, with a focus on short form videos - sometimes for drag shows, sometimes for events, and sometimes for me (Kim). He has figured out some formulas that work and is very effective at making videos and planning out posting for various platforms to maximise ticket sales.

We also mentioned the possibility of having an FSEC social media person that we all give work to - maybe Florian if we’re lucky - we’ll see.

Principals

“It’s not as hard as people think it is - once you know the rules it's easy to replicate”

• Reels are the only things that are shown to random strangers - if you want to expand your audience, find a way to do video content that works for you
• Hashtags used to do this - but not anymore!
• That means people will see your videos with no context of who you are and what you do - give them context - tell them via text on the screen
• People want to seeing legitimacy; that’s why mini mics work, podcasts work, talks work, videos of event posters work
• Trends are not important
• Always a risk of arriving too late to the trend
• It’s hard to go viral on a trend
• It’s hard to push your own stuff via your trend
• Don’t be discouraged by low numbers - keep going and keep track of what works and what doesn't - it’s a lot of trial and error
• Camera quality doesn’t matter so much

Simple Tips

More about showing that people are having a good time at your event in real life

• Don’t edit on the social media app itself - use another app - cap cut is good - but make sure you delete the logo at the end
• Always give context with text on the screen:
  • Use the automatic font - black text with the white outline/background - it’s not there to be aesthetic, it’s there to inform and then blend in
  • Let it disappear as soon as it's not needed anymore
  • Centre the text in the middle
  • It’s fine if the text is quite small
  • Not too much text - keep it simple like “You’re at a drag show”
  • Use an emoji - people love emojis
  • Film in portrait mode
• Stay quite close - move with them
• Use a transfer method to send videos to save quality such as Swiss Transfer
• Show something compelling in the first few seconds - someone’s face, cheering, a big moment - right away!
• Choose the best moments - prioritise:
  • Audible excitement/cheers in the background
  • Nice genuine moments - not planned
  • Anything funny or unexpected
  • Something mildly controversial
  • Open a conversation for people to talk about

Types of Videos that Work

• Performance videos
• Candid video of people having a good time at an event
• Podcast videos or what looks like a podcast video
• Assurance that people want to listen to you
• Looking weird to catch attention
• Looking queer so the queer viewer can identify you right away and be interested in what you have to say
• Videos of irl advertising like posters and flyering
• Videos of process rather than photos of the finished items; Posters, paintings, video, lace, makeup etc.
• Videos replying to comments
• Videos that are not allowed
  • Stripping & nudity
  • Tiktok is much stronger at filtering out nudity

If you hate talking to Camera

• Interview style
• Make it look like podcast
• Make it look like a panel/talk
• Talking to the person behind the camera
• Lip sync to sounds
• Short clip of doing something - with text over the top
• Images of text that someone would want to share in their stories - statements

When Filming Events

• Lighting
  • Red light - people love a red lighting video
  • Blue light destroys the videos - harder to see the person
  • Bright white light directly on you is best
  • Smoke on stage is really hard to film and see properly on camera
• Make sure you film the fullest part of the room
• Show the audience - pan to the audience - quick pan to show the size without showing peoples faces
• Having multiple perspectives of the same thing cut together works well so
• Make it look like it’s being filmed by someone in the audience
• Ask audience members to film and send you the footage
  • If someone is filming anyway & loving the event - ask them to send you what they got
  • Mention to folks that you need footage to advertise the events - “please help us out!”
  • Use google drive/google photos for people to add - put the link in stories or in an email to those who attended
  • Having multiple perspectives of the same thing cut together works well

Closing thoughts

• You have to be really nice to yourself
• You can control 50% of it - the rest is chance
• Amazing videos will flop - it will just happen
• Get a thing that is recognisable and push that as you can (seven foot slut) (kink researcher) (tag lines)
• Get your foot in the door with something

Right there we go!

Thanks to Florian for sharing his wisdom, and if you’d be interested in getting some social media help and pitch in for hiring a FSEC social media support person - please let me know!

The next blog post will be the discussion we had after the advice about Bluesky & alternative social media

Lots of Love

Kim xxx