Page Manager's Biggest Fear: No One Showing Up to the Party

Your event, sales or fundraising team has come up with the best (in their minds, at least) event concept ever. The date, time and venue are set. Now, it is on your shoulders to promote it via your social media channels and get the people to walk in the door.

You create the event; putting in the extra effort of including an eye catching event image and a captivating event description. You even remember to invite your personal online connections. You are confident that people will be knocking down the doors to attend; you may even have to have the event budget adjusted to include the cost of a bouncer.

A little too optimistic?  Of course it is. Anyone who has set up an event on social media knows that 9 times out of 10; a majority of the people that say they are going to attend an event never show up.  

So, what is a page manager to do? While, no one tip or technique is a surefire cure all; there are a few things you can do (and not do) to increase your chances of success.

1. Utilize the social media platform that is appropriate for your event. Industry or professional specific events are best shared on LinkedIn. A workshop on the bioethics is not going to garner the too much interest on Facebook as it would on a bioethics group on LinkedIn.  Conversely, sale events at a local business would garner more traffic on Facebook than it would on LinkedIn.
2. Encourage traffic to the event page; especially on Facebook, by posting updates and images about the event. It will draw those who have already accepted their invitations to the page; an action which will then show up on their friends' news feeds and tickers.
3. Tag community or business partners in as many ways as you can. Their fans will have their curiosity peaked. However, do not fall into the trap of sharing the event on every single community page as you can. There are clearly certain events that do not belong on certain pages.  Posting the link to a political rally on a business' page will not only not help your cause but also may harm the business by alienating some of their followers.
4. Never wait until the last minute. Creating the event online too close to the date is never a good idea. First, it tends to look like you and your organization waited until the last minute; even though months may have gone into the planning. Second, we all lead very active lives between work, school, family and social activities. Finding the perfect date to hold an event is never easy. The sooner you begin to promote your event, the better.
5. If you are also sending out email or snail mail invitations, include the link to your online event so the invitees can keep up to date on any last minute changes.  
6. Always acknowledge and respond to any and all comments made on the event page. Make your guests feel welcome and appreciated. 
7. Post pictures during and after the event. Nothing says success better than images of people enjoying themselves.

Do you have any tricks on increasing attendance at your events? If so, please feel free in sharing them. 

Facebook Page Likes: More than just a number

You have a great product, service, blog or an idea to engage a certain segment of your online community. Whatever the case, your next order of business is to create a Facebook page.  

Five minutes later, the page is active and open for business. Simple enough.  Next on the agenda is to build a fan base. Facebook makes it easy; allowing the page administrator to send page invites to their personal Facebook friends.  

The hard part is getting the invitees to click on the LIKE button and getting them to engage with the page.  

With the possible exception of George Takei, page fan/follower engagement is the number one hurdle to overcome. This may well be an area where time honored marketing strategies need to be thrown to the wayside. 

To transform your product, service, blog or idea into a Facebook "brand", one must think outside of the box. Yes, that is cliche and, while I do regret using the term; it is appropriate in this instance.  

A few of the strategies, I have found that work are:

• When possible, tag your friends, coworkers, fellow organization members when posting photos of events. A simple way to direct traffic to your page and elicit engagement;
• Engage with other pages as your page persona either by liking, commenting on and/or sharing their posts. To create engagement, you must also be engaging.  
• Always acknowledge those that are engaging with the page. Do not ignore the comments or posts made by your followers. Whether it be just liking their comment or responding with a full blown reply, it shows that you are interested in them as individuals and not just for their contribution to the page's number of likes. 
• Never ignore the page insights that are available to all administrators.  The data is invaluable to determining what it working and what isn't.
• An important thing to remember is to know who your target audience is. If you are running a page about cupcakes, posting pictures about cheeseburgers is not quite going to work; that is, unless you can somehow creatively tie the two together. 

That brings me to my final point; be creative.  Simply creating a page will not bring on fans or sales.  It takes a lot of trial and error to find the right mix along with the realization that a successful page will not happen overnight.  Also, you need to realize that success is fleeting if you do not continue to work at it.