More than 500 million people use Facebook Events each month to connect and meet up in the real world.
It might seem that most of those event are to help organize a toddler's birthday party, an end-of-semester kegger, or a casual retirement party, but that doesn't mean Facebook Events aren't useful for marketers as well.
A Facebook event can help broaden reach for your in-person events, which B2B marketers cite as the most effective content marketing tactic.
In second place are digital events, such as webinars/webcasts, which can also get more signups and attendance with the help of a Facebook Event.
Here are 10 ways marketers can make the most of Facebook for event promotion.
1. Take advantage of Page features
Most people who create a Facebook Event take the time to at least upload a photo and create a description, but I recommend using as many relevant fields as possible. Here are the 10 main fields:
- Cover photo
- Name
- Location
- Date and time
- Cohosts
- Tickets
- Description
- Category
- Save Event drafts
- Schedule Events for publication
A lot of people probably don't realize the value of all these elements. For example:
- Setting a location helps people close by learn about the event.
- Adding event Cohosts—artists, performers, venues, etc. —will help broaden your reach to their networks.
- If you're selling tickets to your event, including a link to the provider in the Ticket field will make it easier for people to find than putting it in your description.
- Facebook uses your event category to recommend your event to potential attendees.
- Saving event drafts helps you finalize the Page details before publishing. Other Page admins can also see and collaborate on your event drafts.
2. Use hashtags
Including relevant hashtags in your event description and the posts related to it can help broaden your social reach.
You can use a tool like Sprout Social to brainstorm. Its Trends report will show you what keywords and hashtags are being associated with your brand or industry.
Or, better yet, create your own hashtag to build buzz around the event. I see brands doing it all the time. For example, Mountain Dew created a successful hashtag, #DewGreenScreen, to promote exclusive movie events it was hosting:
If you use your unique hashtag to build buzz for your event, it will come in handy during and after as well: Attendees can use it to share their photos and posts on social media, and communicate with others during the event (kind of like a Twitter Chat).
3. Show off Events on your business Page
To get more reach, you can do a couple things to make your event front and center on your Facebook business Page:
Reorder your navigation
Your business page comes with six navigation tabs, but "Events" is stored in the "More" section by default:
You can change that by going to the "Manage Tabs" option in the "More" dropdown menu to make the Events tab primary on your Page:
Reorder your sidebar
To make upcoming events more prominent, you can also reorder the sections that appear on the left-hand side of your business Page:
Just click "Manage Sections" and then move it up to the top of your page, or just below the "About" section.
4. Share your Event at optimum times
It's difficult these days to get significant organic reach on Facebook. That's a problem, seeing as 60% of connections to public events happen on the News Feed.
But if you share your posts strategically, you can increase your chances of reaching your audience.
If you use a social media automation tool to schedule your posts, it's probably sending them out during peak times, when most people are online.
But research from Jon Loomer has found that organic reach during peak times is actually lower:
So, if you want to get the most out of sharing your Event on Facebook, make sure you (also) post during off-times.
Besides sharing your event, you can also share your entire Event calendar, which will encourage people to subscribe:
You can check out your business page's "Insights" tab, to get an idea of when your posts are receiving the most engagement.
5. Cross-promote with cohosts and influencers
If you have artists, venues, or performers participating in your event, be sure to add them as cohosts to your Event page.
If you're the Event admin, just click the "Add to Page" button in settings:
