As much as most of us don’t want to admit it, we’re all fairly active on social media.
According to recent statistics, as many as 65% of adults use social media—which is only up 7% from the previous year—yet that figure has increased almost tenfold over the past ten years.
Social media has become a part of our everyday lives. Most of us check it before we start our day, during our lunch break, in between soccer matches, after a long day at work, and sometimes just before bed.
We’re almost always connected.
This constant connection is one reason why social media is a great, often underused tool for bringing people together for local events, especially those happening at your school.
If your school hasn’t been taking advantage of this strategy, you’re really missing out.
Today we’ll teach you how to tackle Facebook, in particular, since it’s the most popular social media platform. When we’re done you’ll have everything you need to make your next event a record-breaking hit.
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Why You Should Focus Your Attention on Facebook
When Facebook first hit the scene, it was a way for college students to connect and network with other students at their school. While this lasted for several years, Facebook has come a long way from its roots.
Now Facebook is accessible to anyone with an email address and has become popular among almost every age group—and it’s no surprise why. It’s an easy way to stay in touch and connect with people, no matter if you see them every day or once every ten years.
Current estimates report that almost 2 billion users are active on Facebook, which means there’s more people on this social networking site than there are residents living in China!
One of the largest groups on the rise when it comes to using social media sites like Facebook is parents.
Social media gives busy parents a way to connect during those small breaks in their chaotic lives. It also provides them with a wealth of helpful information from articles to local events in their neighborhood. If they’re part of Facebook groups, they’ll also have a network of support.
This is what makes it the perfect tool for promoting your school and its upcoming events.
Facebook is an ideal place to start building awareness for your school’s upcoming events.
It’s also a space most parents are already comfortable using, meaning they know how to get around and won’t need too much guidance from your team to figure it out.
Your first step of making your school’s gathering a success is to create a Facebook Event Page every time you have an upcoming event at your school.
Set Up Each Event for Success
Ideally, you’ll set up an Event Page ahead of time so your team has plenty of time to promote it and raise awareness for it.
To do this, you’ll need to click on the Events link in your school’s Facebook navigation. Once you’ve located that link, click on the ‘Create’ option to set up a new event.
From here, you’ll fill in all of the details for the event, including the date, time, and location. You should also add information such as admission prices and instructions for parking. The more information you can give here, the better—since that means fewer phone calls you’ll have to answer about it.
Next, you need to add a few eye-catching images to make your page really stand out. If this is a new event, you can use your event flyer or related graphics of that nature to make your page look good.
If this is a recurring event, pictures of all of the fun from the previous year’s event are usually the best images to connect former and future attendees.
Raise Awareness Using Your Event Page
Now, many people (schools aside) tend to stop at that last step. They hope that creating the event page is enough to build awareness around the occasion.
Unfortunately, it’s going to take a bit more work than that. The ol’ build it and they will come strategy does not work here.
From this point on I want you to think about your event page like passing out a digital flyer. Your job is to get this flyer (your event page) into the right hands.
So your first order of business is to invite all of your school’s parents to the event. To do this, you need to send out invites from your event page. Parents will receive this invite and have the option of selecting whether or not they’re interested in going.
Once your parents confirm that they’re going and your headcount begins to increase, you can focus your time on sharing the event.
Encourage the parents who have already signed up to share the event page with the parents in their social group.
If this event is open to the public, be sure to let parents know so they can share it on their personal walls and spread the awareness even further.
Keep repeating this cycle anytime you have an event at your school. Before you know it, you’ll have too many RSVPs to count.
Here’s Why This Works so Well:
The Guest List is Visible to Everyone
With Facebook event pages, parents can see who else is going to the event. Chances are, when they see enough recognizable faces, they won’t want to be left out and they’ll be more likely to sign up.
Reminders are Automatic
Another additional (and free!) bonus of event pages is that they automatically add the date to your parent’s Facebook calendar. This gives parents a way to work the event into their schedule at a glance.
As the day gets closer, Facebook even sends out reminders to give parents a heads up about how many days they have before the event, or that the event is happening that same day. These helpful reminders keep parents in the loop so they don’t let the event slip their minds.
Promoting Events is as Simple as Sharing
Facebook Event Pages make it super simple to promote your school’s events. Parents can share the event details directly from the event page or they can share a link on their wall to drive their friends to the page.
Because this takes less than a minute of your parents’ time, they’ll be more likely to share the information publically and increase engagement for your school.
Nothing is Lost in Translation
Promoting events on Facebook means that when parents share event details, that person will have the exact information they need right at their fingertips. This means those important details such as the date, time, and location won’t get lost in translation during a referral or recommendation—which is huge for boosting attendance rates.
On top of that, these invited guests will also receive automatic reminders if they click on the ‘Going’ link on the event page. Now they won’t forget about it either.
The best part about using Facebook Event Pages to boost your school’s event attendance rates is that the only real time-consuming part is setting up the actual page. And that only takes a few minutes once you get the hang of it!
After that you’ll be able to promote the event and get key information in front of a larger audience thanks to the power of social media. By sharing the link with one person, you’ll have instant access to all of their friends who may be interested in the event as well.
We’ve seen firsthand that this is one of the best ways for schools to increase their event attendance—just make sure your school can handle the influx of attendees!
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