5 Ways to Turn Event Attendees Into Facebook Fans

If you’re like most nonprofits, events are a central part of how you raise money and create awareness for your organization.

But chances are you treat event marketing and Facebook marketing as two completely separate silos. And as Geoff Livingston and Gini Dietrich suggest in their book, Marketing In The Round, integrating these channels will get more results than the sum of each channel.

Promote Your Facebook Page At Your Events

Many of those that attend your events are not subscribed to your email list, not following you on Twitter, and are not a Facebook fan. But they came with someone who is connected to your org. Rather than letting these folks leave your event hoping that they’ll reconnect later (which won’t happen), make it easy for them to stay connected with your Facebook Page.

Why not have them join your email list instead?

You can certainly promote your email list at your event. But because this event may be their first interaction with your org, asking them to join your email list might be asking too much (unless you’re giving them something extremely valuable in exchange for their email).

Liking your Facebook Page on the other hand, is a much lower hurdle for them to jump over. Plus it will create awareness about your org (possibly for the first time) to their Facebook friends.

5 Ways to Turn Event Attendees Into Facebook Fans

1. Create a Conversation Strategy–One of the first things you need to do is create a reason for attendees to talk about your event. Pick a sub-narrative that’s compelling and sincere. “Like our Facebook Page” is not a conversation strategy.

2. Create Awesome Signage–Spend some cash to create attractive signage that encourages attendees to share their experiences and photos on your Facebook page during or after the event (as shown below).

3. Show Posts by Others–Rent three large-screen projectors to display photos, questions, and videos fans posted on your Page leading up to the event. This will show newbies how awesome your community is!

4. Check-in Incentives–If you use a Facebook Place, make sure you offer an incentive for checking into your Place. Attendees can check-in on their mobile devices by selecting the Places icon.

5. Make it Frictionless–The biggest challenge about promoting your Facebook Page at an event is that you’re dealing with mobile technology, which can create challenges. To minimize these, make sure you create a short URL for your Page, as well as a QR code for your Page. This will make it much easier for them to like your Page when prompted to do so.

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