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Announce on Facebook

Organizer Discussions
#1

I just announced an event on Facebook, and I’m not sure what it did is the best thing.

It has put a post on my Facebook page which contains the title of the event followed by the description of the group, and then ‘downtomeet.com’ on the last line. There was no mention of the group name (which in my case gives an indication of the general location).

I’m thinking that the mixing of the event title and group description could cause confusion if I happen to put up an event which is a bit unusual for the group. For example if my group usually caters for people in the ‘intermediate to advanced’ category of something, but I periodically have an event aimed specifically at beginners, then the title and description are likely to contradict each other.

Also there is no mention of a date or time. I think people usually want to have some idea of when the event is when they first see it to know whether they are interested in finding out more.

However I can also see that maybe you don’t want to have too much detail on the Facebook post. I’m not sure quite what the right answer is, which is why I have mentioned this in the forum to see if other organizers have any thoughts on this.

#2

As an addendum to this, I’ve just had my first member join up as a result of the Facebook notification.
He’s RSVP’ed ‘No’ (not suprising because I put it up at very late notice and he probably already has other plans) but it shows that Facebook notifications are likely to be the most powerful way of finding new members.

#3

Thank you, Kevin for the suggestion. We’ll add more info to the Facebook post this week.

#4

Sharing on Facebook - added detailed event information to be passed into FB posts

#5

I’ve just posted another event, and it is certainly much better.

However I think a couple of tweaks could make it better still.

I like the fact that the box contains the event header and the event description. But the first line of the text above it repeats the event header so is redundant.

The location only shows the first line of the address, and since my paddles could literally be a hundred miles apart I think people need to know the general area up front.

Also (but much less important) the top section takes up a lot of vertical space. Maybe think about removing the blank lines and using bold to differentiate between headings and data. I really think you need to put the full address in, even if you put it all on one line.

Oh, and… why am I sharing a ‘quote’? I’d have thought I was sharing an ‘event’, or ‘paddle’ if you want to get more personalized.

P.S. Please take my fairly nit-picky complaints as a sign that you are doing most things right and I can now concentrate on the small things.

fb

#6

Hi Kevin, thanks for your comments. We’ve released a few changes:

  • A full address for the event location has been added.
  • The blank lines between lines have been removed.

The things we couldn’t do:

  1. Even Facebook repeats the event title later in the post; the post needs a title before the description, otherwise it looks awkward.
  2. Re. sharing a "quote”: we don’t have an option of what type of post to use – that’s Facebook’s posting option that posts the text and link and unfortunately, we don’t have control over it.

Thanks again for all of your comments and constructive criticism. It helps us to make the platform better.