If you are running events of any type, but you are not using Facebook Events to invite prospective attendees, you are really missing a huge opportunity. But there are plenty of articles that will tell you that, and they will show you how to use Facebook to invite people to events.

If that's where you are, Google the topic. You will be inundated with great ideas.

In this article, I want to dive one level deeper. I want to show you how to create explosive growth in your event attendance.

Here's another topic you need under your belt to make this idea work. That topic is conversion. Conversion is a term that refers to how many positive responses to your offer or invitation gets. In this case, if you invite 100 and 3 say, "Yes," then your conversion is 3%. Naturally, you want to improve conversion. Depending on your event, this might be any number of things, and again, that is not my topic here.

But let's say you've done everything right. Your event is well planned. You've used a Facebook Event to invite people. and you've invited all 250 of your friends that are potentially interested. At 3% that's 7 and a half people. What can you do to improve on that number dramatically? Get more friends? Start randomly friending strangers? Not a good plan. Facebook ads may help, but here's an idea that will not cost you a dime.

Try this. Next time you get an invitation, even if you can't make the event, rather than just turning it down flat - and especially if the "host" or person who invited you is a networking partner, contact them with a message similar to this one.


"Hi Judy. Rick here. Say, I got your event invite. Thanks so much for thinking of me. Say, unfortunately, I am not going to be able to make it. But it sounds like a great event, and I think a lot of my FB friends might also find it interesting, so I was thinking of responding with a maybe or a yes just so I can invite them. This is a PUBLIC event, right?" Perhaps you even post the event on  your wall or your fan page, if appropriate.

(In case you are not familiar with Facebook Events, there are PUBLIC events and PRIVATE events. These are selections the event author makes when putting the even together on Facebook. If the event author allows it, guest and potential guest (yes's and maybe's) can also invite people. You see where I'm going, right?)



Wow, are you kidding? Who would not jump to get more invitees? So you invite any friends you have that might find this event interesting. Naturally, consider things like interests, age, and geography so you are not inviting women basket weavers from Nome, Alaska to an all-guy alligator wrestling event in Boca Raton, Florida.

Now it's your turn to have an event. What do you do? You call on everyone you favored to return the favor and invite their friends to your event. Make sure you allow guests to invite when you create your event. Practice this with planning and purpose and your events will soar. Soon you will amass an army of people eager to invite their friends to your events becasue you did the same for them.