In the process of creating and launching the Coop Kids Facebook page, there were a lot of questions about how to let people know about events that were happening.
In the process of creating an event on a Facebook page, you’ll be asked whether you want to publish the event to your wall. When you publish it to the wall, it appears on the Page’s wall, and your fans will see it in their news feeds – ie their “home page” feeds, and it will come from the page itself – not from your personal profile.
The third and final step when creating an event is to “Invite Friends”
Administrators suddenly find that, although everything else they do on the page publishes in the name of the page (not their personal profiles), this prompt brings up their personal friends, and the invitation goes out from their personal profiles. It’s confusing, and I’m not sure why the last step isn’t “Update Fans,” which would appear in fans’ “Updates” queue.
It’s not quite logical, and it may well change – as so many things do with the Facebook interface.
In the meantime, what should administrators do?
Invite your friends – but with caution.
When people connect with you personally on Facebook, they’re probably not signing up to receive all your work- and cause-related marketing. Don’t send these kinds of invitations indiscriminantly to all of your friends. And don’t use this as a way to show your colleagues/business prospects/other clients what you’re doing. That’s what LinkedIn is for.
Invite only people who will be interested in the event itself.
Update Fans
You can send an update to all fans of the page by going to the Events tab, clicking on the name of the event, and then clicking “Update Fans” in the menu under the event image.
This update won’t appear in your fans’ Messages (like a personal invitation from your profile will), but it will appear in their Updates tab, which is in the Messages submenu.
It’s important to go beyond just creating the event and update the page fans and invite friends (responsibly), because otherwise fans will miss the initial publication of the event, unless they take the time to go to the page itself and look up the events.
It’s also alright to send more than one update to fans about an event. Send one when the event is created, and then send more as the event draws closer. Just be sure that the updates aren’t spammy. Give more information about the event. Provide links about performers or pertinent subject matter.
Like all social marketing, it will work best if you keep it relevant, expected and interactive.
