When the Nordic venture capital forum GoWest approached CEW Communications about elevating its digital presence for the 2025 event in Gothenburg, Sweden, based on the previous year’s experience, we knew we had an opportunity to create something special. Looking back at our results – a 51% increase in LinkedIn followers, over 160,000 impressions, and 4,000+ reactions – I’m proud to say that the team significantly outperformed industry benchmarks.
GoWest has established itself as a force to be reckoned with when it comes to venture capital forums in the Nordics, welcoming startups, investors, and industry leaders annually. Adding to the credibility and significance of the event, the 2025 edition of GoWest was held at the newly opened Karlatornet, Scandinavia’s tallest building.
The Approach Strategic
To capitalize on said opportunity, our team implemented a comprehensive strategy spanning pre-event, during-event, and post-event phases to maximize engagement. While we ran both LinkedIn and newsletter campaigns, our primary focus was on LinkedIn, recognizing its power as the platform for business networking and event promotion.
“Our goal was clear: turn GoWest’s LinkedIn into a powerhouse for engagement, visibility, and real-time event storytelling. We built a content strategy that didn’t just promote the event but captured its energy and impact—highlighting founder stories, investment insights, and behind-the-scenes moments to create a presence that matched being there in person,” explained Sarah Bone, CEW account director managing the GoWest 2025 account. “GoWest wanted to expand their reach beyond regional boundaries and compete with established players like Techarena, and our strategy was designed to help them achieve this broader presence.”
CEW’s campaign focused on several key objectives:
- Expanding GoWest’s audience and LinkedIn followers;
- Building awareness about the 2025 event;
- Leveraging speakers, partners, and sponsors’ networks;
- Enhancing engagement through interactive content;
- Sharing media coverage to build excitement.
The results* speak for themselves. In the six months CEW worked on GoWest’s social media, we achieved the following:
- A follower growth of 51%, from 2,696 to 4,087
- Total impressions reached 163,564 (+2,899%)
- Reactions increased by 5,411% and comments by 3,225%
*based on LinkedIn analytics
Content That Connected
While it should come as no secret, I’m often amazed at how the simplest of implementations can have profound results: live updates from panel discussions, founder success stories, and networking moments generated the highest engagement. Our top-performing post focused on effective networking strategies shared by speakers at the event.
TL;DR: Strategic networking isn’t just about meeting people but building meaningful connections – plan who you want to meet, leverage LinkedIn to expand your reach, stay humble, and navigate events with purpose.
These networking insights proved particularly valuable to the audience, with strategic tagging and partner network leveraging significantly increasing reach. Post-event content maintained momentum through recap posts, media coverage shares, and highlighting GoWest’s impact.
What Made Our Campaign Stand Out
Looking at the performance data, GoWest’s engagement metrics exceeded industry standards, specifically in the events context:
- Click-through rates reached 3.4-5.3% (industry benchmark: 0.65-1.2%)
- Engagement rates hit 7.5-10.5% (industry benchmark: 2-5%)
- Email open rates averaged 29.7% (industry benchmark for events: ~25%)
The way I see it, several factors account for this outstanding performance:
- Providing authentic, real-time event coverage with high-quality visuals (I guess it really DOES help to have a recovering photographer on board) saw engagement spike.
- We crafted content that genuinely struck a chord with the audience’s interests.
- A multi-phase approach greatly helped to maintain consistent momentum from soup to nuts.
Lessons Learned
For events looking to replicate this success, here are a few takeaways.
Start early! There’s no such thing as GOOD overplanning. Leverage speaker networks, get ready for video (lots and lots of video), and prep interactive content well in advance of day zero. Bonus tip: Encouraging attendee-generated material never hurts.
Hand in the air, I’m by no means the latest and greatest at social media. And I don’t have to be; CEW has a team of top-notch folks who eat, sleep, and breathe social. So, it’s no surprise that the social strategy implemented for GoWest serves as proof positive that event marketing can deliver strong results when executed with surgical precision.
Through careful planning, content optimization, and authentic engagement, the CEW team helped transform a regional conference into a globally recognized venture capital forum with a digital footprint to match its ambitions.