Event Marketing and Social Media Promotion

This past Friday was The Boys & Girls Club of Metro Phoenix’s Big Event. HUGE success! But one group of women I met there mentioned something interesting to me. I asked how they heard about the event. They said they actually didn’t find out until 2 days before from a phone call and has to rearrange their schedules to make it! Then one said something that has stuck with me over the weekend, “If it were on Facebook I would’ve seen it and planned better.”

Is social media effective in event planning?

Everyone knows how to post on Facebook about an event and invite their friends (hopefully by now you all do). But what about creating separate event pages for large events? Would that help? Do you think it would increase the awareness of the event at all?

Well we say YES, it would. From a business owner’s stand point or from someone who runs a fan page (for whatever purpose), you realize that there are people on there that you may not be personal friends with on your profile, however they LIKE your business and follow your posts. In that case, posting about the event on your business page would be a big benefit. But where do you direct them? If you set up a separate event page in advance, you can stock it full of photos from previous events, announce sponsors or auction items, bands or entertainment that would be there, etc. By having this event page, you can communicate with people who like the event from the actual BRAND holding the event, not an individual just asking their friends to come.

So in response to our mystery woman’s comment, yes it should have been on Facebook. That way you would’ve seen what you were in store for from last year’s photo albums and this year’s posts. Sorry Mystery Lady, we’ll get on that for The Big Event 2012. Awesome suggestion!