Introduction <\/p>\n
Social Media is a set of technologies and channels targeted at forming and
\nenabling a massive community of participants to productively collaborate.
\nThese technologies are media for social interaction, and can take many di!erent
\nforms including internet forums, blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos, social
\nbookmarking, and social networking sites. <\/p>\n
There are key characteristics that di!erentiate social media solutions from
\nother forms of communication. A core principle of social media is participation
\nand the only way to achieve benefits from social media is by mobilising the
\ncommunity to contribute. It is not enough to simply collect comments from
\nparticipants, transparency allows other to see, comment, use, validate and rate
\nother participant\u2019s contributions. This encourages further participation and
\nactually shows that you can\u2019t control, predict or model interactions like you can
\nwith other communications channels. <\/p>\n
….1 .
\nIncrease Your Event Ticket Sales Through Facebook <\/p>\n
This article will focus on a specific channel of social media \u2013 social networking
\nsites, Twitter and Facebook specifically. Started in 2006, Twitter is an information
\nnetwork where millions of people and businesses share and discover new
\ninformation. With over 200,000,000 registered users and 460,000+ new sign-
\nups daily, Twitter is becoming a powerful tool for businesses. It allows you to
\nshare information, gather market intelligence and insights and build relationships. <\/p>\n
Founded in 2004, Facebook has more than 500,000,000 active users with 50%
\nof them logging on to Facebook in any given day. Users spend over 700 billion
\nminutes per month on Facebook and 250,000,000 active users currently
\naccessing Facebook through their mobile devices. The average user on
\nFacebook has 130 friends. <\/p>\n
Problem <\/p>\n
How to integrate social media into your traditional marketing activity and leverage
\nthe new opportunities this channel presents? Many people are hesitant to
\ndive into the social media world due to fear of the unknown (new technologies)
\nand the possible threats that it could present. But it is now becoming impossible
\nto ignore the power of social media and in particular social networking
\nsites as a sales channel for events. Next we will look at the benefits for utilising
\nthese types of sites in your marketing activities and how you can capitalise. <\/p>\n
Solution <\/p>\n
Social Media becomes Social Commerce <\/p>\n
Previously everyone talked about e-commerce, basically the process of selling
\nthings on the internet. Since the introduction of social media, this has evolved
\ninto social commerce, using social media platforms such as Facebook to sell
\nthings. When you think about an audience of 500,000,000 users on Facebook,
\nthis become a very attractive sales channel, particularly given the nature of
\nFacebook \u2013 a network where we often look to others when making decisions
\nand our network structure impacts who we ask or are influenced by. Word of
\nmouth is a powerful tool in promoting events and in a Facebook context there
\nis huge potential. If you have 1,000 passionate fans on Facebook, they buy a
\nticket to your event, they each tell 10 friends who tell a further 10 friends, that\u2019s
\n100,000 people who have been told about an event by someone they trust and
\ncan potentially be influenced by. <\/p>\n
………
\nIncrease Your Event Ticket Sales Through Facebook <\/p>\n
Steps to Integrating Social Media
\ninto your Event Marketing <\/p>\n
Step
\n1
\nStep
\n2
\nSet up a company or event page on
\nFacebook \u2013 it\u2019s simple and free to do!
\nFacebook Pages allow artists, businesses, and brands to showcase
\ntheir work and interact with fans. These pages come pre-installed
\nwith custom functionality designed for each category. For example,
\na band Page has a music player, video player, discography,
\nreviews, tour dates, and a discussion board that the artists can
\ntake advantage of. Third party developers will also build an array of
\napplications that they will compete for Page Admins to add to their
\nPages. Facebook Pages are also not subject to a fan limit and can
\nautomatically accept fan requests. If you are the o”cial repre-
\nsentative of an organisation, business, or event you can create a
\nPage to represent your organisation on Facebook. To create your
\nown Facebook page visit
\nhttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/create.php
\nand follow the steps.
\nEncourage people to become a
\nfan of your Facebook page
\nA few suggestions for increasing the number of fans: email your
\ndatabase and ask your customers, prospects, etc to become fans.
\nThere are a variety of free email marketing tool available such as
\nMailChimp http:\/\/mailchimp.com\/ that you can use to email your
\ndatabase in a professional, cost e!ective manner. Include Face-
\nbook and Twitter pages links in your email newsletters and put
\nlinks to your Facebook and Twitter pages in your email signature
\nand on your website.
\n….3 .
\nIncrease Your Event Ticket Sales Through Facebook <\/p>\n
Communicate with your fans
\nPost engaging content \u2013 links, videos, photos, comments that
\nencourage fans to interact with the page, post comments, like your
\nposts and share posts with others. Facebook has a Resources
\nsection which allows you to send updates to your fans. There is the
\nability to segment who you send the message to by location,
\ngender or age. To access this section, log into your Facebook Page
\nand click edit info at the top of the page. Next click on Resources
\nand then Send an Update. In this screen you can select who you
\nsend the update to, add the subject and message text. Send your
\nfans a message telling them that they are able to buy tickets for
\nyour event through the Facebook ticketshop and be sure to include
\na link to the ticketshop.
\nIntegrating your website with
\nFacebook is a great way to increase
\nthe number of fans on your
\nFacebook page
\nFacebook has a number of ways that you can integrate social
\nplugins across your website from like buttons, activity feeds,
\nrecommendations, like boxes, to live streams. For information on
\nhow to integrate these plugins with your website visit
\nhttp:\/\/developers.facebook.com\/docs\/plugins\/
\nStep
\n3
\nStep
\n4
\nThere\u2019s more…
\n………
\nIncrease Your Event Ticket Sales Through Facebook <\/p>\n
Sell tickets through your
\nFacebook Page
\nSetup a ticketshop so that you can commence social commerce
\nand sell tickets to your event through your Facebook page and
\nreach those potential 100,000 people! Customers that buy tickets
\nfor an event through Facebook can communicate this to their
\ncomplete network of friends with one click and automatically
\nupdate their status with links to the Facebook ticketshop spread-
\ning the potential for ticket sales to an even greater number of
\npeople. Visit www.ticketscript.com for more information on setting
\nup your own Facebook ticketshop.
\nIntegrate Social Media Channels
\nConnect your Facebook account with Twitter so that you reduce
\nduplication of e!ort with only having to post content once.
\nStep
\n5
\nStep
\n6
\nThere\u2019s more…
\n….5 .
\nIncrease Your Event Ticket Sales Through Facebook <\/p>\n
Step
\n7
\nStep
\n8
\nIt is important not to forget \u2013
\nmonitoring results from this activity!
\nRegularly view the insights from your Facebook page and monitor
\nthe number of fans you have, how many likes you have, the
\nnumber of post views (some posts may engage users more than
\nothers \u2013 investigate why), demographics of your fans \u2013 what
\ncountries are they from, what gender and age are they, this infor-
\nmation could be used in other marketing activity to focus on a
\nparticular target market.
\nTrack E!ectiveness
\nResearch tools available to track the e!ectiveness of all your
\nactivities. One suggestion is http:\/\/bit.ly\/ a tool that shortens,
\nshares and tracks your links \u2013 great for Twitter posts but also
\nanalysing who is clicking on links.
\nSummary <\/p>\n
Social media is becoming a key component of marketing for events and social
\nnetworking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have the ability to spread the
\nword about your event with low financial investment. Understanding how you
\ncan leverage your presence is critical but the main thing is to have a presence
\nand begin utilising the potential as a sales channel. <\/p>\n
For more information on setting up your own Facebook ticketshop to sell tickets
\nto your event please visit www.ticketscript.com <\/p>\n
………
\nIncrease Your Event Ticket Sales Through Facebook <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction Social Media is a set of technologies and channels targeted at forming and enabling a massive community of participants to productively collaborate. These technologies are media for social interaction, and can take many di!erent forms including internet forums, blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos, social bookmarking, and social networking sites. There are key characteristics that di!erentiate … Continue reading Increase Your Event Ticket Sales Through Facebook<\/span>