How to promote an event on Facebook for free?

Facebook today is being used by over 2.3 billion people and it the second most popular social media platform after Whatsapp. 1 in 5 page views occurs on Facebook. Consequently, Facebook is the third most visited site globally after Google and Youtube.

78% of consumers have discovered products and services to buy on Facebook. Moreover, 42% of marketers report that Facebook is critical or important for businesses. Hence, it naturally seems like Facebook is an ideal place to promote your event.

As many event organizers and event marketers confirm; Facebook is a great way to promote an event. However, event organizers must know how to promote an event on Facebook before any reach can be achieved and participation can be increased.

Luckily, with this blog, we provide event organizers with 6 steps to follow when promoting an event on Facebook at ZERO cost:

1. Create a Facebook Business Page

Facebook continues to be the best social network for businesses to set up a digital presence and engage with potential customers. Even if you do not have a website, you can create a Facebook business page for free and reach out to an audience of billions! Facebook pages are liked by Facebook users. Each like on your page means you have gained a fan. When someone likes your page, any update you post whether it’s media, text, or shared content will appear on their news feed.

Facebook pages also let you provide information such as products and services, hours, location, and reviews. Having a page makes your business more official, more professional, and more in-tune with today’s social media marketing strategies.

Benefits of having a Facebook Business Page:

1. Organic Reach
2. Increased exposure
3. Lead generation
4. Insights to understand your audience better
5. Drive traffic to your website through Facebook

2. Create a Facebook event

Being able to quickly and efficaciously organize events is absolutely essential to the event organizers. Thankfully, creating and promoting your events, as well as determining customer interest has never been simpler thanks to Facebook Events.

Facebook events alone are used by 700 million people each month. Therefore, it would be an ideal place to promote an event, and because there are so many people using Facebook, it is very important to create effective Facebook events which make you stand out from the crowd. An effective and optimized Facebook event can help you attract more interest in your event.

3. Use your Facebook Business Page to promote the event

Make Events Tab a notable part Of your page. On the left side of all business pages is a column with various modules. One of the modules that can be moved up or down is called Events. By simply moving this module close to the top of a company page, event organizers will be able to provide all upcoming & past events with more added exposure.

Post upcoming events to the timeline. Share an upcoming event with those who are following your Facebook page. This can be a good way to increase reach and generate interest, especially if shared multiple times well in advance of the event.

4. Share your Facebook Event

Once your Facebook event is live, it is time to share the event and invite people to your event:

• Share your page and event with your Facebook contacts.
• To share your event, click the dropdown under Invite and then click Share to Page.
• Invite people to like your Facebook page and event.
• Share the event as a post on your personal timeline.

Facebook also gives the option to share on your friend’s timeline and share in a group or on in an event.

5. Promote the event with co-hosts and ticketing link

CO-HOST

Promoting your event on Facebook can and should be a group effort. Facebook allows you to add multiple co-hosts for a Facebook event. You can add multiple friends or Pages, like artists, partners, and sponsors, to help spread the word. Adding co-hosts to your Facebook Events allows you to collaborate with other pages and gives your Event more potential reach. The Event also shows up on all listed Pages. Co-hosts also have editing privileges and can also add it to their calendar, making it easier for all involved to edit the title, description, or other Event elements.

You should also extend promotion by adding your event to Facebook Pages of your co-hosts. There are often a lot of people involved in organizing and promoting an event. Add your event to calendars on your co-hosts’ official Pages. To do this, click the More dropdown on your event next to Invite. Then, select Add to Page.

When events are created through the Townscript platform, it is suggested to the event organizers to create a Facebook event and use the cohost option to add Townscript. Townscript receives huge visits on a daily basis on its Facebook page and that traffic can be leveraged by event organizers to increase the reach of their event. All they have to do is send a cohost request to Townscript page and post acceptance, the event is automatically added into Townscript Facebook page’s event calendar as well as upcoming events.

TICKETING LINK

Apart from adding a co-host, you also should add a link to the ticketing site. Theoretically, never leave this field blank. The ticketing URL should ideally be a link to the webpage where you are selling tickets or accepting registrations for your event. Adding a ticketing URL boosts your chances of getting more conversions. If you do not have such a ticketing link, you can redirect guests to your website or even a Google Form.

Try Townscript for the ticketing of your events and accept registrations through the Townscript event ticketing platform. Townscript provides a dedicated link for every event that can act as your website as well. The event organizers can give their dedicated Townscript event link as a ticketing URL on their Facebook event. When a potential guest is on your Facebook event page and clicks on the ticketing link, they would be redirected to your Townscript page. This enables the guests to book tickets instantly!

6. Add Content to your Facebook Event and Engage your Audience

The most important way to use your Facebook page for business is to engage with your audience. Create posts and content that engage people.

Share pre-event content to further excite interested attendees. Consequently, it would further engross them and will encourage them to share your event with their friends or community.

The traditional rule for audience engagement is 80/20. Eighty percent of your content should be for your audience, and 20% should be for your event. This means that the majority of your posts should be aimed at getting your audience to engage with your page. You can do this by encouraging audience participation and sharing content that highlights the audience. For example, marathon organizers can highlight the experienced runners and pacers in multiple posts.

INVEST IN VIDEO

Multiple data sources suggest that there is a 600 percent increase in Facebook interactions when a video posted. Furthermore, People gaze five times longer at video than at static posts on Facebook. P

Use Facebook Live Video. People spend 3x as much time watching a Live video than a pre-recorded one. Recently, a conference organizer used Facebook Live Video to reach over thousands of people. The video provided those who were unable to attend the conference with a glimpse at what they were missing thereby increasing the chances of more interest for his next conference.

But, would you need a professional to shoot or create a video for you? I would say no. Just take out your mobile phone, shoot a live video for your Facebook event to increase the number of engagements.

Other forms of content that you can use include:

Bonus Tip: Directly Sell Tickets on Facebook

As per Facebook: “Events that sell tickets directly on Facebook sell 2x more tickets than those who redirect to a ticketing page”. Facebook also found that events that sell tickets directly on Facebook have, on average, twice the number of viewers on Facebook as those without native tickets.

If you choose Townscript as your ticketing partner, you can easily add ticketing directly on your Facebook Page (provided your page has more than 2000 likes). Check out this step-by-step guide to set this up through your Townscript account.

The integration takes as little as 5 min to set up and enables people to discover and purchase tickets for your Townscript event without ever leaving Facebook.

Summarizing “Promoting Events On Facebook — Free!”

No matter what your strategy is to promote your next event, creating a Facebook Business Page and a Facebook event is must for you. Facebook is a fantastic resource for an event organizer hoping to generate that buzz.

In order to reach the right audience organizers must create an effective Facebook Event and assimilate the Facebook Event into an existing Facebook business page. In addition to it, adding more co-hosts, linking to a ticketing site and selling directly on Facebook are useful ways to get more conversions for your event without spending a penny.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to leave comments.

Originally published at https://blog.townscript.com on May 3, 2019.