Strategy for Creating a Successful Facebook Event Page

It’s common knowledge that Facebook is a useful tool for promoting events online. So, when you’re planning an event, what’s a first step? Your knee jerk response – ‘Create a Facebook Event Page.’

It’s a logical strategic move. An event page can be a valuable way to communicate and promote, but one important consideration before pulling the trigger; do you have the resources to successfully promote an event page? If yes, you need to plan ahead how you’re going to use these resources most effectively. Here we look at what running a successful Facebook event page requires.

The operative word used above is “successfully”. Your Facebook event page is like a small child that you’re going to nurture until the actual event day. You have to babysit your page and its needs may be fairly significant. You could waste good time and energy on an event page and get poor results.

Delegate Your Facebook Event Promotion

Before creating your event page you either need to commit to handling it yourself, and depending on the event’s size and your social media savvy, this may certainly be possible. Or you’ll need to delegate the responsibility to one or more people, again, depending on an event’s size and resources available.

Social Media Savvy

If you are not terribly comfortable or experience with social media we would encourage you to enlist assistance regardless of an event’s size. You may muck things up more than one might think. An employee who knows the ways of social media can be a tremendous asset.

Event Knowledge

Lastly, the person responsible for your event’s Facebook page should know all the details about what they’re promoting. An event page is a resource for potential attendees and communication should be quick and accurate. If the person controlling the social media conversation needs to constantly ask questions of other staff, this is a waste of time.

Use Your Content Wisely

Understand that you’ll need to supply constant content, and that content generally does two things – promotes and informs your audience. All of this communication can put a serious demand on your time and energy.

Content Objectives

At the promotion stage you need content to engage an audience and encourage them to talk about your event in their own social circles (the concept of “going viral”.) Yet as an event approaches, you want to shift the focus of you’re broadcasting toward useful information attendees require. This allows you to continue fresh communication that helps maintain momentum, but also focus on the needs of your core audience.

Community Engagement

Your core audience will comment and ask questions. Again, responding accurately is paramount and the time lag between a question and your reply is critical. If your engagement is slow you’ll appear unresponsive, momentum will drop and you’ll kill the interaction you need to successfully promote your event.

Planning Ahead

As an event manager you plan every detail ahead of time so you know how to employ all your resources. Your Facebook event page content is no different – make a content plan for your event promotion.

Content Calendars

Create a content calendar – what are you communicating and when. Write posts in advance so that they can be copied and pasted into your updates (watch out for time-sensitive information, copy-edit and review before each post.) Keep in mind you can vary and supplement your content or make changes along the way.  You are likely promoting the same information on additional social media platforms – pre-write their content as well.

Timely Communications

Having a plan and scheduling posts in advance makes managing a Facebook event page much easier. That said we’re living real-time. Remember that you are providing useful information. Any changes to event details will need to be updated across all communication platforms, and quickly. Scheduling does not get you off the hook, and your spontaneous posts and replies may actually generate the greatest return on investment.

All of this isn’t to scare you away from promoting events on Facebook. It is the easiest and cheapest tool for doing so by far. But successfully promoting an event via a Facebook event page is not always a walk in the park. It takes a great deal of time and effort to promote events successfully and you should either be up for it or have someone on your staff that handles promotion. If you’re stuck along the way without the resources you need to keep promoting your event, momentum will die. We don’t want that!