If you are running a Facebook page, Facebook Events is a great tool for inviting your fans to a specific event. Facebook recently made it easier for you to set up an event and invite all of your fans, or just a selection of fans. Let’s see how that works.
Setting up an event
You can only set up an event for Facebook pages, not for your personal profile. So you first need to use the “Use Facebook as” function and select the page you want to work on. Then click the “Event” button.
In the pop-up you can fill in all the necessary event details. As you can see, your event is targeted to all your fans (as you can see I’ve got 308 likes at the moment). You can choose to add the event to your page right away, or define more specific targeting. Targeting doesn’t mean you are reaching all of your fans, I will explain this below.
In my example I choose to target my event specifically to my female fans, which lowers the targeted audience number but could increase the attending percentage. You can also target on:
- Relationship Status
- Educational Status
- Interested in
- Age
- Location
- Language
Combining these targeting methods lowers your targeted fans, as you are refining your targeting. Note: You can’t change the targeting once the event is added.
After adding your event, you could stop there. But there’s still some work to be done if you want to increase the chance of people actually attending your event.
Fine-tuning & promoting your event
When you click on the event link, you are taken to the event page. Here you can add additional information or updates about the event, include pictures or even set up a poll. This is also where you’ll find your statistics or people attending your event.
There are a number of ways to increase the number of people reached. These are:
– Boost your event
– Making an ad for your event
– Using your personal contacts list
Boost your event
You can choose to boost your event, just like you would with a normal post. You specify a budget and a targeting method. You should always do one boost to people who already like your page, to make sure you reach all of them.
Facebook doesn’t show your events to all of your fans. They use their own algorithm for this, which is based on engagement with your page. Basically if your page has low engagement rates, it is harder to reach your audience.
Every page is fighting for the same eyeballs, so Facebook has to decided which to show in the limited space they have. Promoting your event increases your reach among your fans. You can also choose to target potential attendees who aren’t fan yet.
Making an ad for your event
The second option is making an ad for your event. You will find the “Promote” button in the drop-down next to the “Edit” button.
Using ads isn’t much different from boosting an event. The main differences are:
– An event ad allows for paying per click and per impression with price control. A boost only allows for paying per impression, with Facebook optimizing your spent.
- An event ad gets placed in the right sidebar, where a boosted event gets placed in the main timeline of a viewer.
- Ad event ad allows for additional information and pictures, where a boosted event will be displayed as is.
Using your personal contacts list
The third option is achieved in a way which is a bit odd. You can use your personal contacts list (your Facebook friends) to send an invitation. To do this, you need to take the following steps:
- Switch to using Facebook with your personal account
- Visit the page where the event is added
- Click on the event link
You now see a new set of buttons where first the “Edit” and “Promotion” buttons were. You can choose to invite friends personally, or share the event on your timeline.
Conclusion
Facebook has taken the Event functionality very seriously, which gives you a powerful tool to add and promote events. If you want to do it properly it will probably cost you some money. But with Facebook marketing still being relatively cheap that shouldn’t hold you back on trying it out.
Quick tip: The event I added isn’t really my own event. It is hosted by a company I partnered with, and I earn a commission every time someone attends. It’s a perfect way of promoting your affiliate link in a natural way.
Note: Facebook has a help section on creating events in their knowledge base, but it is very limited.
Jacco BlankenspoorJacco Blankenspoor is a website developer from the Netherlands, and is currently just building lots of different websites. When he is not working on HIPAAHQ.com you might catch him grinding coffee.
