One of our clients is holding an event next week that ticks all the boxes: free food, free post-election cocktails, and plenty of unique shopping to kickstart the holiday shopping season. We set up an email marketing plan for the event using Constant Contact and sent it out to her mailing list, but we advised that she use Facebook Events to promote it as well. Before pulling the trigger on the Facebook Event, however, we had to ask ourselves if we should do a public event or a private one. Ultimately, we decided on a private event because the light lunch and cocktails offered might attract too many attendees to manage. Either way, Facebook Events can be a powerful tool to promote your event.
Let’s face it… people are always looking for a fun event to stave off their existential dread. If they see an event on their timeline because their friends are sharing it and/or planning to go, they’re a lot more likely to attend your event. Here are the steps to follow when setting up a Facebook Event for your business.
Ask yourself whether the event should be private or public.
If you’re offering something free at your event, it might be best to keep it private, like our client above. And in that case, you’ll need to use your personal Facebook account to create the event.
If you want to get bodies in the door and can handle a lot of traffic, go ahead and make your event public. You can use either your personal Facebook account or your Facebook business page. In that case, it will show up on users’ “Events Near You” page in Facebook.
Ask yourself if you want to allow guests to invite others.
Even if your event is private, you can still allow your guests to send invitations to their friends. This may be a good way to compensate for the difference between an avalanche of deadbeats looking to get free stuff and high-quality leads.
Note that you can invite people off Facebook by sending them an email or a text in the Facebook Events page. You have to do it manually, so it’s not a very effective way to send invitations.
Make a great graphic for your event.
We recommend searching for “Facebook event graphic size 2016” (or whatever year) pretty much every time you build a graphic. The requirements change so often that it’s tricky to keep up. This year, the optimal size for your Facebook Event graphic is 1200 pixels wide x 675 pixels tall to look best on mobile devices. Note that the height will be cropped to 428 pixels on desktop, and figure on a maximum of 360 pixels of unobstructed height on a desktop computer. Because of Facebook’s auto-cropping, keep the lower half of your image simple.
Write an enticing title for your event!
You don’t need to include the location in your title; make it short. Think about the events that made you want to attend them, and mimic their success.
Be sure to include ALL the details of your event.
We can’t count how many times we’ve seen an event page that neglects to include critical information like the time or the date. Go above and beyond and provide information on parking, what to do in case of inclement weather, who is hosting, costs of the event (if any), a website for the event, wheelchair accessibility, food options—anything else you can think of that might help guests. Furthermore, fill in the tags! When you’re creating the event for a business page (not a personal one), you have a chance to add tags. Facebook uses these to recommend event to people with related interests, so don’t pass it up.
By the way, once you reach a large number of responses, you can only change the time or location of the event three times. Once the event begins, you will not be able to edit the event details.
Use a Facebook-recognized venue.
When you type in the address for your event, a list of geographical locations should pop up. And when that venue’s Facebook page pops up, you might take the opportunity to message the venue to ask them to promote your event too.
In most cases, allow guests to write on your wall.
If you’re concerned that someone might write something negative, you certainly can check the option for posts to be approved by an admin beforehand. By allowing guests to write on the wall without moderation, you can make your event page look more active. And the more active, the better.
Invite people!
Share the event on your personal page and encourage others to share it too. Sadly, you can’t directly invite the people who like your Facebook Business page unless they happen to be friends with your personal account. We know. Sigh. You CAN share a link to the event to your Facebook business page or your personal page.
Tease the event!
Add posts, videos, and photos on the event page wall in the time leading up to the event. Not all the people who like your page will see it in their newsfeeds thanks to Facebook’s frustrating algorithms, but you do increase the likelihood by keeping things active. Persuade friends to share it. Share it on your other social media platforms. And keep in mind that you can directly message people you’ve invited, so you might think about sending out Facebook messages about event details to people who haven’t responded to your invitation.
If you’re ready to take the next step with your Facebook events, you can even use the integrations offered by Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, Ticketfly, or Spectra. You can duplicate the event to use as a template for your next event. You can go live with your Facebook event. You can advertise the event using Facebook’s ad platform. So many possibilities! Questions about a Facebook event? Contact us!
