With more than 1.23 billion monthly active users, Facebook has become the world’s most popular social media network and one of the world’s most visited websites. In fact, it was trumped Google.com in terms of traffic. Event planners and organizers can leverage the power of Facebook to promote their upcoming events, which is something that we’re going to discuss in today’s blog post.
Create a Facebook Page
You have one of two different options available when creating an event on Facebook: you can create it from your personal profile (found on the left-side menu of your news feed), or you can create it from your Facebook business page. Profile-based events, however, are designed strictly for personal purposes, whereas page-based events are designed for commercial/business purposes. Assuming your event is business-related, you should create an event from your Facebook page. This is done by logging into your account, accessing your page, and choosing Offer, Event + or Event Milestone at the top of your timeline > Event > enter the details of your event > and click Create.
Ticket Sales
Facebook recently added the option to specify a URL for ticket sales with events. If you have a website set up on which guests can purchase tickets, be sure to specify it in your event’s details. The very last field of the event creation tool is “Ticket URL,” which is where you should specify the webpage URL for ticket purchases.
Promoting Your Facebook Event
After creating an event on Facebook, you should spread the word so people know about it. Hopefully, you already have people following your page, at which point they’ll see your event either in their news feed or the next time they visit your page. But you can also manually invite people to your event by clicking the Invite link at the top right (under the photo). From here, you can send invites to your followers, informing them of the event.
If you really want to take your Facebook event promotion to the next level, consider using the social media network’s paid advertisement platform. Click the “…” link under your event > Promote Event > enter the details of your advertising campaign (e.g. target demographic, budget, run dates, etc.) > and click Place Order. For as little as a couple cents per visit, Facebook Ads can drive tons of new visitors to your event post.
Use #Hashtags
Hashtags aren’t reserved strictly for Twitter. While they were initially created for the 140-characters-or-less social network, they’ve since found their way onto Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, and even Facebook. When promoting an event on Facebook, be sure to include relevant hashtags to increase its visibility. If you are planning an event during which the magician Ben Silver is scheduled to perform, you may want to include the hashtag #BenSilver. Anyone searching for “Ben Silver” on Facebook may stumble upon your event.
Photo credit: Scott Beale