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Health & Fitness

Top Ten Tips For Creating a Facebook Event

These are some great tips for creating a successful Facebook event. Test your content and test your event photos. Remember, just because you create an event on Facebook, doesn't mean people will be lining up outside your door the day of your event. 

The key to a successful event, is having ample time to promote, market and creating great event content. We suggest creating your event 4 weeks in advance and 8 weeks if you are just starting out. WeShareMedia uses these practices as a base to start every event and we advise you to do the same. 

At WeShareMedia we are evolving with the changes of social media marketing and sometimes creating them. If your business ever needs advice on creating events from a store opening to a live concert or festival, or would just like a free consultation WeShareMedia is here for you. We are hard working, local and happy to help. 

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1. Use a Facebook page to create your event and add your personal profile as a host.

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  • Invitees have a link to see all of the other events you have created.
  • Invitees have a link to like your page.
  • Your personal profile can directly message all of the invitees (however, abuse of this feature can be seen as spam.)

2. Don’t make someone search for information on your event.

Make sure the important stuff is at the top of the details section and can be seen without hitting “See More.”

  • If there is a separate registration website, put that first!
  • At the end of the details section, list all of the links someone would be interested in: main event link, tickets, audio, video, Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, and all other event links.
  • Third party Facebook event aggregators such as HUGECITY recognize these links and highlight them for their audience.

3. Use Facebook-recognized venues, not addresses for the location.

Type the venue name into the location bar slowly. Facebook will autocomplete the name of the venue and then you can click on one of the suggestions. If your venue is not listed, create a venue.

  • VERY IMPORTANT: If you do not have a map on your event, Facebook will not recommend it to friends of your attendees or people in the area.

4. If your event lasts longer than 5 days, create multiple events.

Calendars automatically import Facebook events and you will create more friends than enemies if you squat on someone’s calendar for days. Additionally, if you don’t add an end time, Facebook defaults your event to 3 hours long.

5. Never check “Only admins can post to the event wall.”

The wall is the best place to engage your invitees. Allow them to communicate with you.

6. Add a cover photo that fits the event and fits the rectangle (714 x 264 pixels). 

This is just like a magazine cover or flyer for an event. Don’t use the flyer for the event unless you can see all of the information you need in the rectangle.

7. Have one official Facebook event. 

If you can, make everyone involved in the event a host to your event.

  • Invitees can see all of their friends who are attending without having to look at lots of events.
  • Those hosts can help spread the word about your event
  • The true attendee number can be seen a lot easier

8. Use your invites wisely.

Create groups of friends by location, interest, work and more.

  • Use Facebook 3rd party applications like “invite all of your friends” to invite the groups of your friends to your event. (Abuse of this feature can be seen as spam, and can be against Facebook`s terms of service)

9. Keep people excited about coming. 

50 percent of tickets are sold when you first publish the event. The next 50 percent are sold the week of the event. Someone saying that they are attending does not mean that they will remember to be there.

  • A post into your event wall notifies everyone who has been invited.
  • Post pictures, past videos, reviews and articles written about the event (remember to tag all of the pages involved with the @ function).
  • As your page, send an update for your event.
  • As your personal profile send a direct message to all attendees.

10. Promote your event outside of your circle. 

Facebook only allows you to invite your friends. Facebook ads give lots of impressions but very few attendees. (It’s not worth the cost.)

  • Share your event on Twitter and your Facebook page.
  • Share your Facebook event with all of the people involved with your event.
  • Share your Facebook event with bloggers and tastemakers that would care about your event.
  • Share the Facebook event with all of the local event bloggers like: PatchScoutmobWaze, and local newspapers.

Resources: Top 10 tips for creating a Facebook event - Inside Facebook
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