blogs4businesses.com

So many businesses post a happy hour, dinner, or other event on Facebook and expect a magic throng to materialize at their door. But without certain planning, precautions, and promotion on other channels (including in-person and word-of-mouth), your event is bound to bust. Never fear: heed these rules to optimize your Facebook invites.

1. Target the right guest list

If you’re gonna invite all of your fans to a, say, happy hour event, know that the ones who live states away probably aren’t going to attend. Better to target more local friends. Take it a step further—ask and leave comments on your (local) opinion leader friends’ pages—preferably, people who live or work near your businesses—to recruit some more people to the event.

2. Use the right social network

Speaking of location, maybe Facebook isn’t the place to post your happy hour event. Maybe it’s better on a place like a Ning social network for your area. Find a group that engenders a category your business falls into, and start an event there. Or start your own group: “Downtown happy hour fanatics.”

3. Give due time

Not too long of a lead, and not too little. A week and a half is good to do the necessary legwork.

4. Jazz it up

Make a short, funny video about your event. Plant it on your Facebook page and plug and link to it on your ancillary social media outlets (Twitter, Ning, opinion leader blogs on which you comment). Visual media is arresting and instantly explanatory.