Maybe I’m missing something here. But in my experience, Facebook Events don’t work all that well for libraries. Or for many organization-based Facebook Pages.
Why? Because you can’t invite your Facebook Page friends to the event. The “Designated Host” of an Event (usually the creator of the Event) can only invite people from their personal Friends list.
See the problem here? My library’s Facebook Page is friended by 13,000+ people who live in Topeka. I’d love to invite them.
Instead, I have to invite my personal Facebook friends. Which are a weird mix of you guys, my family, other librarians, high school and college friends, some local friends, some vendor acquaintances, and some people I work with.
For the most part, not people living in Topeka.
Sure, once created, I can Share the Event on the library’s Facebook Page. I can even pay for ads for the Event (which is what Facebook really wants you to do with Events).
Does that make sense? Nope. Not really.
Instead of creating a Facebook Event, do this instead:
- Create a normal Facebook Page post that includes a link to the Event page on your website.
- Pay a little money to Boost the post.
- Pin the post to the top of your Facebook Page.
And have fun at your event.
Cute baby pic by Branden Williams
Cheryl Becker says
Well, that’s dumb.
davidleeking says
Yes it is 🙂
Evelyn Shapiro says
I experimented this summer with setting up our whole event season on Facebook. So I did encounter this limitation.
However, I think it depends how you use them. And how robust/media-rich/share-friendly your online calendar listings are by comparison. We use Evanced and the listings are very plain. The Facebook listings are far more enticing and share-friendly—and I’m able to make visible (and clickable) all kinds of associated content, like the trailer for a movie that’s being shown, or the poster for a community event, or a deep link into our catalog to books that relate to the event. Also, it’s been nice having a way to easily share a curated list of events as a group.
If you are strategic with tagging, the post will show up in the Facebook feed of key participants. I think this can work well for performers and some author visits. If your presenters are using Facebook to reach their fans, it’s helpful to them to have a Facebook event to post to their timeline.
One of the first events I created on Facebook was for a Local Authors Fair. We sent the link out to all the participating authors in an email. I was pleased to see that within the hour, the event appeared in my Newsfeed, because a friend of mine, one of the authors, had invited her friends (not sure if she invited all of them; she has 1300+) to come to the event. I like the way creating an event puts power of sharing into others’ hands. Some of our followers and supports are very active on Facebook and are, in effect, quite effective brand champions.
Also, I’ve noticed if we don’t create an event, the presenter sometimes creates their own. And then the branding for the event is diluted and/or can confuse our audience. At some point, we may have to create these events.
Still in the experimental stage! So I’d be interested in others’ success stories about using Facebook events. Thanks for bringing this up, David.
Here’s a question I’d like the answer to: once someone says they are “Going” or “Maybe Going” to an event, are they then able to invite their friends?
Evelyn Shapiro says
In case you’re curious to see how I’ve been approaching this, here’s a link to Champaign Public Library events on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChampaignPublicLibrary/events
Curtis Rogers says
Agreed! I’ve stopped posting events as events in FB and just posting them as a post 🙂
Tana Elias says
I’d mostly agree with this, although Facebook events do seem to work for us when used selectively for larger events or events targeted at certain audiences, like our Wisconsin Book Festival or Night Light after hours events. We also see good results when the author/presenter/performer creates an event for themselves, shares it with their friends, and we cross promote it.
In general, I find that Facebook doesn’t really drive event traffic for us, even though we post a lot of library programs and events as regular posts (with the exception of a few signature events). I’d be interested to know if this is true for others, too.
Alissa W says
We just started experimenting with FB events this summer for some key family programs – we’re in a smaller community (16,000) and I am friends on FB with several of our mom power users so inviting them to our library events, which they in turn could then invite more of their network too really worked for us. In fact one mom told me that she really liked how we were doing fb events since she could then invite other moms and FB would remind her the day of the event. So I think it really depends on the size of your community and who it is that is posting your events – do they have the right set of friends to create interest.
davidleeking says
Good point, Alissa – thanks for sharing your experience!
Evelyn Shapiro says
Yes, I’ve noticed the same!
alfalah_i says
good post
http://www.afu.ac.ae