Facebook has turned from a simple way to converse with colleagues into the most powerful online marketing tool for business. It continuously grows by adding more features, and currently it already offers quite a lot of business or event-specific functions, such as pages for groups and charities. Apart from being a popular service for users to share pictures, opinions and status updates, Facebook provides a place where you can promote your events for free, engaging your fans and spreading information and updates about your company.
Another good option for professional event planner is to use the paid advertising, to get more exposure and boost awareness. Therefore, how can you make it happen?
News Feed: the best place for event promotion to appear on Facebook is the News Feed. To do this, you need to associate the event with a Facebook Page, not Personal Timeline. Any public event posted on Personal Timeline will also appear, but only on the right-column ads. To promote on News Feed, you need:
- Facebook Page: if you don’t have a Facebook yet, create one. Make sure you obtain the permission to create ads and publish it on that page.
- The event: create an event you want to promote and publish it. Click Promote Event, add more details, such as audience and budget, and finally Place Order.
Make Cover Update: to give an immediate impression of the event in your Profile, change your cover photo with an image about the event. It is also easy to add a call-to-action text in the image using free image editor. Complement this by providing a link with which other users can register. Although Facebook is not stand-alone event registration software, you can point the link to your own website for easier management.
Comments Plug-in: on your website, place a social media add-on, particularly Facebook Comments Plug-In. When someone posts a comment to your website post, it automatically counts as more visibility to your Facebook page as well.
Boost Post: any post can be boosted as long as it is posted on your Page, not personal profile. Make a post about your event and click the Boost Post on the lower right corner. Before the post is actually boosted, you are allowed to change audience and budget based on you how long you want the post remains boosted by Facebook. Option to change payment method is also available.
Use Videos: to create more appeal and increase your event registration count, video is the right media. If you have good footage of your previous event, post it on your page. Of course, you may want to use professionally-filmed footage to attract more people, but you can always go DIY by using the free YouTube Editor or any free video editor software in case you are low on budget.