If you want more of the right people attending your events, supporting your non-profit causes or charity benefits, and playing an influential role in building the online buzz, today you can learn the step-by-step way to use your community on Facebook to deliver the goods.
Today’s guest blog post comes from Cynthia Flash
, a talented Puget Sound-based publicist who knows a thing or two about successfully promoting non-profit and other events by using Facebook. Take it away Cynthia.
I’ve become a Facebook junkie. Why? Because it’s such a great way to connect and reconnect with people from my present and my past. I love seeing what all my “friends” are doing – both personally and professionally. I see that some are interested in the environment. Others love the arts. Some are very devoted to health care causes, in some cases because they are facing health care crises themselves or are supporting a friend or family member.
What does this have to do with public relations? Tons. Facebook is a must-have for any organization that wants to get its message out. It’s easy and powerful. Not many organizations are yet on Facebook. Most don’t have policies, and many block employees’ participation. You can promote causes for your organization personally. You don’t have to do this from an official business account. Here is what you need to do once you log in to Facebook.
- Find the “Events” application on the navigation.
- Click on it.
- Click on the “Create an Event” button.
- Type in the information about your event.
- If you’re having trouble here, go to your “Settings.” Under “Event Settings,” make sure you – at the very least – “Allow Events to publish one-line stories automatically, but prompt me for larger stories.”
- Once you’ve typed in your event, invite your “friends.” You decide how many and who you want to invite. I choose depending on the event. I know all of my friends wouldn’t want to attend – or even know about – my son’s elementary school auction. I invited those I knew would really want to attend. However, I wanted to invite every one of my friends to my client’s free, open-to-the-public holiday event, “Providence O’Christmas Trees” so I invited all 200 of them.
Now here’s where this gets really powerful. Tell all of the other people you work with in your organization, your board, your volunteers, etc. to also invite all of their “friends” to this event. All they have to do is search for the event through Facebook’s “search” function and click the “invite people to come” button to invite all of their friends.
When someone RSVPs “yes” to the event, that could show up on their Facebook page, depending on how they’ve created their settings. This is a way to continue to spread the message about your event. If you click on the “share” button, you can write a note that will get posted to your profile. This is a way to help build buzz as the event approaches.
Finally, let’s look at some numbers. Let’s say you have 30 people in your organization who are on Facebook. Let’s say each has 100 friends. If each invites all of his or her friends to your event, that’s 3,000 invitations. Each comes with a significant amount of credibility because it comes from a “friend,” not a stranger at the organization or in the fund raising office. If some of those 3,000 friends “share” the event or “invite people to come” it spreads even further. This is viral marketing at its best – with the benefit of credibility.
I tell my clients that this year this is all new. Next year it will be old hat. So go out there and tell all your “friends” about your event through Facebook.
So, dear readers, now you have your own step-by-step guide to build viral buzz and results for your upcoming events by using Facebook. And you can spread the message without spending a dime on postage, additional dollars to create fancy, expensive invitations, or wages for your administrative assistant or other over-burdened team member to manage the project. Thank you Cynthia for sharing practical, step-by-step tips to help others spread the word about their events.
What other step-by-step directions do you need from experts who know the score? Let me know what you need, and I’ll write a post to answer your question or find the perfect expert to deliver what you need. I am here to help and committed to support your DIY publicity success.
