How to Create an Event on Facebook
Creating and promoting an Event in Facebook is a powerful and often underused marketing tool. The cool thing about this application is that you can use it for real world or virtual events (such as teleseminars or webinars.) This post will cover the basics for setting up an Event and a following post will provide some additional for promoting your event.
Creating a Facebook Event
The Event application is installed by default for both personal profiles and fan pages. So, your first step will be to determine whether you want to promote the event personally or as your business or brand.
Look for the event icon in your status update bar or click on edit page from your fan page to go to the Event page. You will want choose a catchy title that really compels people to check out your event. Be aware that you cannot change the title after the event has been posted. Select the start and end dates and times. These times will be post in your time zone, so if you are inviting people from different time zones you may want to make a note of this in either the description or in the personal message you might include with your invites.
- Add a photo or an image. This is a must. An event without an image looks unfinished.
- Choose a category and include a creative and rich description.
- Set the Event Options.
It’s a good idea to enable the event wall so people can ask questions, post comments or post regrets. Enabling photos, videos and links are other good ways to further engage with the people attending or interested in the event. If you are allowing guests to bring friends to the event, then go ahead and leave this option checked. Decide if the guest will be public or private.
From here you can click “Save and Continue” which will take you to the next step where you can personally invite your Facebook friends or invite friends via email. You can also include a personal message to your invites which is a good idea but make it warm and inviting so that it doesn’t come off sounding spammy. And remember to only invite those friends who you think might truly be interested in your event. By not taking advantage of this feature or of your friends, then you can continue to use this as a good promotional marketing tool in the future.
If you are not ready to invite people, then click “Skip and View Event.” This will allow you see how the event looks with all the information you have entered. You will notice off to the right under the picture are options for editing, inviting friends and other actions.
Stay tuned for a future post with tips and ideas for how to create some kick-ass buzz for your event.
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Category: Facebook How-To, Facebook Marketing
I have a personal account I setup with my name on it so I could create a fan page for my company. When I create events in the fan page the email states it comes from my name and not the fan page name. I have google and found no solution. Can you assist?
Hi Rick,
This is a good question. Unfortunately, the answer is that whoever sets up an event automatically becomes the “Admin” for that event even though the event itself lists the page as the Admin. Also, sending out invites to the event are usually to your personal profile friends, so this also means that the invite emails come from your personal profile account.
You can also read Facebook’s explanation from their help center here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=12577 and here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=12577
I know it’s not the answer you had hoped for but I hope it helped in some way. Thanks for stopping by!
I run a small theatre, which has a Facebook page and we produce a festival which has its own Facebook page.
When I create events for the Festival, I want to post them on both pages. How do I do that without cutting and pasting and essentially creating 2 events?
Hi Jen,
When you create an event, it’s either tied to a single page or to a personal profile. There isn’t currently a way to create an event and have it tied to both pages. Each event does have it’s own unique URL so you can copy the URL and paste as an update on the other page. This is actually probably more helpful with raising the visibility of the event overall. I wouldn’t recommend creating two page as that could just cause some confusion but instead just using both pages to drive traffic to the one event page. Hope this helps.