15 Tips for Well-Publicized Facebook Events (Like the #ChicagoGMF)

Over the next several weeks, we'll launch both a series of books and trainings in the New York City area. At Carbon Outreach, our mission is to develop social enterprise in NYC and beyond, so I would love to hear from you if you're wondering where to go next with your marketing or digital advertising campaign. 

The below article includes several pictures from the Green Metropolis Fair. Our client, the Green Parents Network, put on this great event in conjunction with Mindful Metropolis, and the event used social media tools, including Facebook and Twitter very effectively. We wanted to define the ways--particularly for Facebook (used in conjunction with Twitter) to help make your next event as successful.

Without ado, below are 15 recommendations for making your next Facebook event a success: 

1.    Have a clear way to RSVP if it isn’t via Facebook (i.e. through your website, Eventbrite or Brown Paper Tickets [the fair trade version of Eventbrite]).

2.    Tweet about the event and note, “Facebook friends are especially encouraged to RSVP via Facebook".

3.    Invite friends that’d be interested in the event. It helps here for your contacts to be organized into personal groups on your profile (easily dividing the family members from business colleagues).

4.    Don’t be consumed in the number of people who’ve RSVPed, it’s really about the conversation the event creates. In defining metrics, how many mentioned your event on Twitter, how many RSVPed and how many conversations did your event start?
 
5.    Invite current Facebook page fans to attend.
 
6.    Publicize the Facebook page on the event website itself (for example, on Meetup.com, you can put this in the “Comments” section or on EventBrite, you can put this in the “Description” section).
 
7.    If you’d like, you can have participants have duplicate RSVPs. Depending on whether this is a large (500+) event or small (20+) seminar, you may be able to e-mail individuals about social media channels.
 
8.    Inform participants about your event hashtag (like #fsq4socent or #sm4socent, make the tags individual, rather than generic. The reason is because #green #chicago and other tags are often already used frequently, whereas this tag is talking about a specific event). When you categorize your hashtag, you’ll be able to quantify how many tweets happened AND people are more likely to RSVP and contribute. 

#ChicagoGMF Hashtag stream during the Chicago Metropolis Fair, 16 April

9.    Engage your participants to e-mail their friends or colleagues with a special offer if necessary. Ask them to share the event on their Facebook wall.
 
10.    Once your participants have RSVPed, post up an @reply to mention the event to your Facebook Fans, as well as on your personal page. This cross-posts the event from your Facebook Page to the event page.
 
11. If you're partnering with other organizations, make sure to @reply them to CC their Facebook fans.


12. When you create status updates about the event, feel free to @reply to groups/pages that would be interested in learning about or RSVPing to the event.


13. Make sure your partners have publicized their Facebook fans RSVP to the event.
 
14. Create a video for your event, and include the official website to RSVP as well as the Facebook event URL (in customized bit.ly format makes things easier).


15. Bonus: Creating a microsite (rather than being at http://yoursite.com/event it's http://yourevent.com) for the event improves SEO and a better advertising experience increases the likelihood that you'll have more/bigger partners.

Contributor: Erica Grigg is Partner and Director of Digital Marketing at Carbon Outreach. She's trained hundreds of social entrepreneurs, CEOs, non-profit and corporate philanthropy leaders about how to use social media marketing tools. To learn more about Erica, follow her on Twitter @ericagrigg or connect with her on LinkedIn.