Social media

Instagram continues to be an all-in-one platform to promote your event, connect with your audience, and share the magic of your TEDx events with a global audience.

Build anticipation by sharing updates leading up to event day, including behind-the-scenes moments about the planning process. During your event, share highlights live through Stories. Afterwards, share videos and photos of your stage, audience, and experiences.

LinkedIn is a ready-made platform for your event’s ideas and a great place for your team to connect with potential speakers, volunteers, and audiences. Promote your event, share talk snippets, and engage with your speakers.

Facebook is another great channel to promote your event. Many people continue to use the platform, even as newer platforms are growing rapidly.

There are a wide range of other tools to tap into. Check out TikTok, Threads, and more. Several teams have also found success in directly connecting with audiences on messenger apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat.

First things first! Choose which platforms you want to engage on - different platforms will help you reach different audiences. When you create an account, use your TEDx event name as your handle (e.g., @TEDx[name]). Add a bio that introduces people to your event - assume that they may not be familiar with TEDx events. Include your location.

For more on naming your event's social accounts, refer to the TEDx Rules

Invite your friends and event guests to follow your accounts and engage with your content. Consistency is key on social media - try picking a few content styles, and set regular days and times when you’ll post.

Follow other TEDx events’ accounts. This is a great way to build your audience and connect with the internal community while finding inspiration to boot. Engage with their content by liking, commenting and sharing.

Remember to promote your accounts in all your communications - add account links to your website, emails, and event programs.

Short-form video and eye-catching photos will help your account stand out in the sea of content. Before the event, introduce your event’s theme and ideas, venues, speakers, and experiences with engaging visuals. After your event, share photos and videos to relive the big day. You’ll also use these images to promote your next event.

Learn more about creating short-form video below.

As you confirm your speakers, consider introducing them to your followers. You can share speaker bios and talk teasers, tag speakers’ accounts where applicable, and ask speakers who have a social presence to cross-promote your event. 

In addition to tagging your speakers’ and sponsors’ accounts, you may share relevant content as collaborative posts that allow you to co-author a post with another account. Available on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, they’re a great tool to reach new audiences in your promotions and talk videos. As you’re planning a collaborative post, make sure that your posts follow guidelines outlined in the TEDx Rules.

Spark conversations and get to know your community by posting questions. Poll your followers about their favorite TED talks, which local topics they care about, and what they want to see at your events. Respond to comments and DMs from curious audiences.

Unfortunately, Meta’s policies operate outside TED’s control. If your team’s Instagram or Facebook account is blocked, we recommend seeking alternate platforms or creating a new account with an alternate version of your event name by using underscores, hyphens or periods. Please contact tedx@ted.com to work out the alternate name, so that it doesn’t overlap with another team’s.

You’ll be able to engage a wider audience with short-form videos that highlight digestible takeaways and notable moments from your speakers' talks.
Once your event’s talks are published on the TEDx YouTube channel, your team and speakers can create TEDx talk clips of up to 60 seconds long as Instagram Reels, TikToks, YouTube Shorts, and other short video platforms.
Experiment, experiment, experiment!

If you decide not to renew your TEDx license, or TED does not renew your license, you must transfer administrative control and ownership of the social media accounts and pages related to your event to the next TEDx licensee of the series.