So you want to run an event for your local business!

One of the best and most effective ways to do that right now is leveraging Facebook to do it!

Your audience is likely to be on Facebook. Facebook affords almost anyone to get amazing results using just a few of their features and products in tandem.

If you want to bring awareness to your local event and get more people to attend, read on!

You don’t necessarily have to have a large following to take advantage of this strategy but you might need a little courage!

Tip #1 – Leverage Facebook Live!

The first thing that you want to do is to host a Facebook Live on your Facebook page.

Yes! That means you might need to get on video! If you’re creative you can avoid having to be on camera, but you’ll need to leverage the Facebook Live feature to essentially create a video that can be leveraged in a way to get in front of your local audience! (If you screen share, you can effectively create the video without ever having to be on camera. But we recommend getting on Camera! Your audience will love you and you’ll build a stronger sense of Know, Like and Trust!)

During your Facebook Live, you’re going to explain the details of your local event.

You’ll share when and where the event will be and you’re going to be very descriptive on what benefits people are going to get if they come.

You would also want to tell them to bring a friend or to share this event or the details with anybody that they know.

Facebook Live doesn’t have to be super long. 5 to 10 minutes is plenty long.

And here’s a little tip, if you can…it might be a very good idea to bribe them with some food (cookies, donuts, or coffee).

Tip #2 – Pin Your Facebook Live Post as the Top Post On Your Page (and Share It)

Once you’re done with your Facebook Live, pin that post to the top of your page until the event is over. Next, if you are an Admin of a Facebook Group out know Admins of Local Facebook groups, consider asking if you can share your Post and Announcement in those Facebook Groups.

Bonus if you can get other Admins to Pin that Post to the Top of the Groups Announcements.

It’s a good idea to start promoting your event about a week before and have it pinned before and during your event.

Another point worth mentioning about Facebook Groups is you can actually create an Event within the group that acts almost like an announcement that you are holding an event in the first place.

Why that is so important is that there is a feature within creating an Event that allows you to Invite members of the group to your Event. This gets Your Event on Their Radar!

Tip #3 – Leverage The Description Box

When you do the Facebook Live and then pin it to the top of your page, make sure to also write a description with your post with the event time, place & date, and any other details to help entice prospective attendees to come to your Event!

Now, this is optional but it will dramatically increase the attendance at your local event.

After your Facebook Live is done and it’s a post on your Facebook page, you want to boost the post with a Facebook Ad and you want to specifically target the people in your local area where that event is being held.

Boosting your post so it is shown locally and specifically locally will bring awareness about your event, thereby increasing the likelihood of increasing attendance.

Plan to do this for about 4-5 days before the event happens.

Boosting your post too far out might make people forget about the event unless building your email list through registration is part of your process (not a bad idea) by which you can remind prospective attendees with follow-up emails or SMS Text Messaging.

But if you’re not… you don’t want people to forget the event when they see it in a Facebook Ad.

Then the way to do it is to run a Facebook Ad or Boost your post. You can get great results and awareness by setting a budget as low as $5-10 per day and dramatically increasing the attendance of your event!

And target people only in that local area where the event is being held. We love just using Zip Codes to do this!

You’ll start to see some incredibly dramatic change in attendance to your local event just by adding that one little boost feature to the Facebook Live that you’re already doing.

You’ll spend about $20 to maybe $40 doing this throughout that time!

This is probably a lot better and results-driven than going through the hassle and expense of creating flyers, passing them out, or doing local advertising.

Our opinion is that this is a super powerful, inexpensive, timely, and targeted strategy but also more effective than any other avenue or advertising stream that exists at this moment for the intended purpose of promoting a local event!

Now, for those of you that don’t know how to run Facebook Ads may be yet, or who need help with leveraging Facebook Ads to help promote your event, we would be delighted to help you.

So… if you are a small to medium-sized business and you are looking to grow your business and local reach in the community as well as generate more clients for your business feel free to contact us here:  https://napervillelocal.com/get-in-touch/