Effective Facebook Recruiting Event Promotion
Facebook is a great way to reach a lot of people in a short period of time, for an extremely low cost. As of the fourth quarter 2016, there were 1.86 billion people on Facebook. There are also thousands of people and pages competing for space in the feeds of your potential members or customers. So how do you make sure that the right people are seeing your event? How do you do really effective Facebook Recruiting Event Promotion?
Here are some ways you can get your event seen by as many people as possible on Facebook:
Announce Your Event on Facebook
This is the one most people probably think to do first. Just a quick announcement of the date/time/location and contact info in plain text. This is the one I see the most regularly, and if you’re doing this, great. It’s a good step. But it shouldn’t be the only thing you do. Text alone posts get a lower priority on Facebook’s algorithm. So fewer people are going to see it.
So what you’re going to want to do is…
Tag Photos and Flyers in Your Post
Facebook loves tagged photos. A photo that’s tagged with several names is much more likely to be seen by more people.
So take a picture of your event flyer. If you created it in Microsoft Publisher, you can save your file as a .png file. If you created it in Word, you can save it as a PDF, and easily convert it to a .png using pdf2png.com.
Include this in your post. You’ll also want to include a group picture in your post. Make sure it’s one your allowed to post on Facebook – ie, you have the permissions needed. Then tag the relevant people in your group.
The more people you tag, the more people are going to see that photo. Since your current members are much more likely to know your future members, this can be a great way to reach a lot of the right people.
You want to have more than one photo. Facebook likes this. And if you really want to take your promotion to the next level – include a high quality video.
Include Some Links
Having some links in your post will also be helpful. If you’ve got a website, direct them to an announcement of your event there. Links in your post make Facebook think it’s a little more important.
Creating an Event
In your Facebook Page, you want to create an event. This will have all the details for your event. You’ll need to the date / time / location in the info boxes. You’ll want to include the correct contact information. Lastly make sure that you’ve included the details of your group and your organization. What are you going to be doing that night, and what does your group do in general. Make sure it’s clear who you’re looking to recruit – from the general down to the specific. A Little League would be recruiting kids in a certain area, for example.
Then you’ll need to go about inviting people. Ask everyone in your group to invite any potential members they know to your event. I’d even suggest having them pull out their phone’s and invite their friends at your next meeting.
Note: You don’t want to create your event in a private or closed Facebook group, as this will mean that nobody will see it. This is one of the main reasons for having a Page, as opposed to a group. I’d recommend having both a Facebook Page AND a Group. Think of the Group as your your online meeting for your members; and your Page as your storefront for the general public.
Spend a Little Money
You’d be amazed at the number of additional people you can reach for a few dollars. You can even target specifically the types of people you’re trying to reach. Whether it be parents of specific-aged children, people with certain interests, business professionals, or whatever. Give it a try. We’ll be releasing a guide to this in the coming weeks. Make sure to join our mailing list via the form below to be notified when that tutorial is launched.
Seed the Clouds
Are there Facebook groups that the people your looking to reach might be in. Take a few minutes to find these groups. Join them if you have to. Most towns have some some sort of community Facebook group. Here’s the one for the town I live in. Then share your event announcement in the group. You can also share your announcement on other pages walls. You should also ask appropriate organizations in your area to share your event – schools, fraternal organizations, churches, newspapers, radio stations, government agencies, etc.
This will take a little bit of work, but in the long run, this is how your event is going to be seen – and will pay huge dividends in helping to grow your group in the future.
Photo by Sole Treadmill 