Facebook Events For Local Or Online Leads 2015

Local Small Businesses Support Local Artists

---

The Art Party started in 2010 to promote the Main Art Drift, an annual event of local small businesses supporting local artists along Main Street, Vancouver. Local businesses enhance our community, connect and support us socially, enhance wealth and employment to establish local economies that are economically viable, environmentally sound and socially responsible.  

The Art Party has co-produced and co-promoted over 30 live workshops, talks, networking events and group exhibitions with our Facebook Page since 2013. We’ll use The Art Party Facebook Events for leads as a case study you can adapt. 

Why Use Facebook Events for Local or Online Leads?  

You can use joint ventures with Facebook Events to increase the success of the total number of attendees. This also reduces the risk of a low turnout. Facebook also has a 500 limit on total invitations per event per account. Therefore, joint events are more important than ever for your Facebook Events!  

It’s important to remember that it is not necessarily the people from social networking or at a networking event that can provide you with direct opportunities, but the people they may know for potential introductions. Relationships are central to networking.  

What Can You Promote on Facebook Events? 

Facebook is one of the most powerful social media platforms. By setting up a Facebook Page or a Facebook Group, you can promote and invite Friends to your Facebook Events. I also use Facebook to grow my email list. 

Facebook Events can be used to promote almost anything related to a specific date and location: a product launch, discount on an existing product during a period, a gathering or milestones of your business. 

With a Facebook Event, put the important information at the top of the details section, and list relevant links at the end. Add videos and photos to promote the event, as well as post on the wall to communicate with attendees. Invite your friends to join the event and add more admins to your event so they can invite their friends too. If you post the event to your profile, it will also show up on the newsfeed.   

Next, we’ll show you how to easily generate sales leads through your own networking group with just a few Facebook Friends.  

---

How to Get Leads on Facebook With A Few Friends  

STEP 1: Talk to a few of your trusted Facebook Friends to create a joint networking event. You will all agree to invite friends to the event and share in the work and costs. Talk to a venue that can provide the space for free during non-peak hours, as they can make money from the food and beverages.  

STEP 2: Register a memorable domain name such as www.TheArtParty.org. You can get a domain name for under $20 from most host providers.   

STEP 3: Next, set up a free Facebook Group if you don’t already have one. Redirect your domain name to your Facebook Group. Then you and your Facebook Friends can add Members instantly and easily. If there are five of you each adding 100 friends, you can have 500 Members in a matter of days! Then start promoting your first networking event on your Facebook Group to create a buzz.   

STEP 4: From your Facebook Page or Group, create a Facebook Event. It’s free. Include your joint venture Facebook Friends as hosts on the Facebook Event page. Post an attractive picture along with your logos in the Facebook Event image box that represent the networking event.  

STEP 5: You and your Facebook Friends will collectively promote your Facebook Event on your Facebook Profile. You will also jointly invite Facebook Friends. If there are five of you and you each have about 100 friends, that’s 500 potential guests for your first Facebook Event. Generally, about 10 to 20% of these guests will attend.  

STEP 6: You can also promote your event on Twitter and other social media sites. That’s free! You can ask your Twitter followers to retweet, that is RT your message, along with a @Twitter handle for the venue if it is on Twitter and include a hyperlink of the domain name redirected to your Facebook Group or Page. 

STEP 7: You can also invite your email list. MailChimp.com is free for under 2000 contacts. In your email message, include an RSVP email address and a link to your Facebook Event URL, in case some of your email contacts are on Facebook already. Also, add an autoresponder to your RSVP email with a link to drive traffic back to the Facebook Group Page to continue to grow the Membership.  

I sent out to over 900 contacts as MailChimp tracks open rate. It was 40%, well over the industry standard, which tells me the subject line starting with RSVP was successful. 

STEP 8: You can also ask other organizations to promote your event to their list. As joint venture partners, they will promote for free. My Facebook Friends and I belong to a barter exchange. Joint venture organizations are interested in promoting our event as they could also meet potential new clients from the promotions and the event. 

STEP 9: Create a printed gift card with a call to action for guests to email for their free gifts. We used a printer for part cash and part barter to print these gift cards.  

STEP 10: Finally, create your auto-responder email for guests to claim their gifts. The theme here is “to your networking success” so the links include PDFs, MP3s and videos are about successful networking. This also enables you to email your guests for your next networking event! This can be live or online once you have an email list.   

RESULT: 24 Hours after the Facebook Event…48 out of 95 RSVP guests attended. The Waldorf invited us back for a sponsored event. Our Facebook network grew too:  

• The Facebook Profile gained 94 new Friends  
• The Facebook Group gained 29 new Members 
• The Facebook Fan Page gained 25 new Likes 

The Art Party Members Are Mostly In Metro Vancouver

FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/1568267630103668

FACEBOOK ALBUM: https://www.facebook.com/media/set?set=a.426512557532153&type=3

---

The Art Party gatherings with live painting to help connect artists and collectors / business owners. This is a casual networking event where the back area which holds over 50 guests is reserved as a private party for The Art Party. The entrance is free, but ordering drinks and food from Nonna’s is encouraged for all guests.

Sign Up To Join The Art Party Community Facebook Group  

If you want to learn more about making money online as a creative, sign up below. We’ve shared and promoted over 400 live local art and music events on The Art Party Facebook Group since 2010 to help build our community.

You can also share your creative events there too!  

---