7 Ways to Promote An Event on Facebook

If you’re hosting an event, Facebook is an excellent way to get the word out. Even if you’re not using their built in Facebook Events feature, you can still easily promote an event on Facebook.

Here are 7 highly effective ways to leverage the power of Facebook to promote your event. And a bonus tip… but don’t skip ahead!

1. Groups and Pages

Some event organizers choose not to use Facebook Events to promote their event and use other services. The Events feature can lack flexibility, and there are no privacy settings if you want to do a private event.

However, if you create a Group or Page for your event, you’ll have more control. You can invite only the people you wan, and with Groups there’s more opportunity for invitees to interact with each other. Groups and Pages are especially nice for ongoing events because you can set them up just once, but keep using them over and over again. if you keep using the same page over and over, then promoting an event on Facebook becomes less of an issue, since you never lose your audience.

2. Promote an Event on Facebook with Hashtags

Create a hashtag for your event and ask your fans to use it. Hashtags are keywords that are searchable and clickable, allowing people to find your event more easily. The phrase is written as one word and preceded by a # symbol, like this: #yourevent. Started on Twitter, hashtags are now recognized on Facebook as well.

3. Offer Incentives

If you want to get the word spread far and wide about your event, offer an incentive for liking or sharing it. You’ll not only get more exposure but also social proof—other users will see that your event has received lots of likes.

The incentive doesn’t have to cost you anything. It can be a bit of exclusive content, free membership to a pay site, a software free trial, a discount on products or services, or a digital download product.

4. Engage Your Fans

When writing posts to promote an event on Facebook, try to engage your fans as much as possible. Ask questions, and seek their feedback by telling them to comment on Facebook. Facebook’s algorithms push popular posts with a great deal of engagement to the top of user’s news feeds. If your posts have a lot of activity, they’ll be seen by more people.

5. Last Event’s Content

Use content from the last event to promote the current one. Pictures and videos of people enjoying previous events really sell future events. You can also ask for past participants to write something about the event and use it as a testimonial. Focus on how the event helped them or what results they got from it. Ask people to tag themselves in your pictures so that more people will see them.

6. Host Micro Events on Facebook

Create mini-versions of your event and hold them on Facebook. For example, if you’re hosting an offline networking event, have a virtual version where your fans can meet one another and mingle online. During the mini-event, tell participants about the bigger offline event and what they can expect from it. The mini-event is a teaser for the offline version.

7. Live Updates

During your event, post live updates on Facebook for people who can’t make it—or better yet live stream it to Facebook. Your followers can see in real-time what’s going on and this gives them incentive to join future events, or in moment if live streaming it.

Facebook is a great way to promote an event. For more ideas, find a business or organization that is similar to yours and look at how they promote their events using Facebook. The great thing about promoting events on Facebook is that it costs you nothing or virtually nothing.

8. Bonus Tip! Don’t Forget About Facebook Ads

Using Facebook Ads can be an amazing way to get in front of people that might attend your event. Facebook has world renowned targeting options, so you should be able to target anyone that might want to attend it. Just remember to start small, and scale it up once you’ve found something that works.  Because of the sheer number of people that use Facebook, it’s easy to burn through a budget in minutes.