Every day 1.18 billion people use Facebook, and 85% of those people are in the United States. That means the people who might buy tickets to your event are more than likely using Facebook. If they’re not logging into Facebook on a daily basis, they’re certainly logging in on a monthly basis. In total, 1.79 billion people use Facebook every month.
The challenge is connecting with those people to raise awareness of your event and actually motivating them to buy tickets. To help you develop a Facebook marketing strategy that works, here are 10 promotional tactics that have been proven to be effective.
1. Facebook Sharing Icon on Your Event Ticket Sales Page
It’s essential that your online ticketing application allows you to include a Facebook sharing icon on your ticket sales page as well as icons for people to follow and share your event on other social media platforms. In one click, any visitor to your ticket sales page should be able to follow your Facebook Page and share the link to your ticket sales page on their own Facebook Profiles. This is essential to raise event awareness.
2. Facebook Comments on Your Event Ticket Sales Page
Your ticketing application should also allow you to integrate Facebook comments into your ticket sales page. This way, people can communicate directly on your ticket sales page through their Facebook Profiles, which makes your ticket sales page more interactive and can increase word-of-mouth marketing.
3. Facebook Advertising
Facebook has become very much a pay-to-play place, which means you’ll have to invest in Facebook advertising to boost awareness of your event, traffic to your ticket sales page, and ticket sales. Create sponsored post ads with a “Buy Tickets” button, and be sure to use vibrant images and amazing copywriting or your ads won’t convert.
Don’t simply boost an existing post. Instead, use the Facebook Ads Power Editor to create a unique ad with specific targeting criteria. For example, you can target people by location. You can also target “lookalike” audiences by uploading a list of email addresses or selecting another Facebook Page with a similar audience to the one you’re trying to attract.
Keep in mind, the average cost per click (CPC) for a Facebook ad is $0.64, and the average click-through rate (CTR) is 0.9%. Testing is critical to ensure you’re maximizing your return on investment.
4. Facebook Page Cover Photo
Update your Facebook Page cover photo with an image dedicated to your event. Be sure to include the URL to buy tickets as well as the date, location, and time. Also, it’s important that your cover photo follows the appropriate Facebook guidelines.
5. Facebook Contest
Holding a Facebook contest is an excellent way to build awareness of your event! You can use the contest tool built into Facebook or use a third party tool like WooBox. The key is to offer a giveaway that is also related to your event and your target audience would really want.
Promote the contest using Facebook ads, and invite people to like the post, like your Page, leave a comment on your post, or share a photo or video on your Page (e.g., a photo of the person holding or doing something relevant to your event) to enter the contest.
6. Publish Videos
Facebook videos are getting eight billion daily views and that number is double what it was just six months ago! Even more compelling is the fact that Facebook Live videos are watched three times more than regular videos. Currently, 100 million hours of Facebook videos are watched every day.
Clearly, video content is hot, so you should be creating it and sharing it on Facebook! Learning to use Facebook Live isn’t difficult. Just be sure to create meaningful content for your audience and promote your live video in advance so people know when it will be!
7. Invite Multiple Facebook Page Administrators
Are there multiple people who you would trust to be administrators of your Facebook Page? If so, add them to your Page as admins and ask them to invite all of their personal Facebook friends to like your Page (of course, you should invite all of your own Facebook friends, too). The more people who like your page, the larger the audience who has a chance to learn about your event and tell their friends about it. This is a great way to boost awareness and word-of-mouth marketing for your event!
8. Cross-Promote with Sponsors
If your event has sponsors, ask them to share your content and updates on their Facebook Pages. In fact, you could even make this a requirement of sponsorship. To keep your sponsors happy, be sure to share some of their content as well. Social media is a give-and-take, so be sure to reciprocate.
9. Invite Attendees to be Event Evangelists
Are there certain people who go to all of your events? Will your event have a performer or speaker who has a tribe of fans already? If so, these are perfect people to approach and invite to be your event evangelists. Reach out to these evangelists directly and personally invite them to help you spread the word on Facebook (and beyond). Many super fans will be happy to share information about an event or artist they love!
10. Publish Useful Content Often
Don’t assume people heard about your event the first time you posted an update about it. The lifespan of a Facebook post is very short. According to a study by Wisemetrics, it takes just 30 minutes for a Facebook Post to achieve 50% of its reach, and 75% of your audience sees your Facebook post within only two hours.
That means you need to publish posts about your event more than once! However, be careful not to inundate your followers with self-promotional posts about your event. Instead, strike a balance between useful, meaningful content and self-promotional content.
Your Next Steps
Now that you have 10 proven Facebook marketing ideas to promote your next event, it’s time to start strategizing! What will you advertise? Which evangelists will you approach? Does your ticketing platform offer the features you need to integrate Facebook sharing icons and Facebook comments into your ticket sales page? Create your Facebook marketing plan based on these 10 opportunities, and watch your ticket sales rise!
