Can Facebook actually be used to bring in people, business opportunities and sales to your venue? YES! Myself and my clients do it every day.  Follow these 4 tips and you’ll be on your way to Facebook marketing success.

1. Bull Horn

The number-one no-no  on Facebook,  is broadcasting, instead of providing fans with relevant content and engaging on an continual basis.

With Facebook, nightlife venues of any size can do effective, word-of-mouth marketing at scale for the first time. But its all about authenticity, so if your Venue is not being authentic or engaging with your fan base in a way that feels genuine and honest, the Facebook community will see right through

You should be interacting, not just to broadcast,  your fans are looking for a reason to connect with you, and they’re showing you that by clicking ‘Like.’ Your job is to give them a reason to come back.

Examples:

• Take video of your events, post them on Facebook and have your employees tag friends
• Post photos of your events, post them and have your employees find their friends and tag them in photos
• Post Polls about what DJ they want to see at the venue
• Post status updates as you book new DJs or make upgrades or changes to your venue

2. Not Investing Adequate Time

Another common mistake is underestimating the amount of time a successful Facebook strategy will take. Simply “set it and forget it” will not work here.

It’s not just fan growth that will suffer from this approach — it may also hurt your relationships with existing fans, particularly fans who have come to expect a certain level of quality from your brand / venue.

You must engaged your fan base and give them reasons to share as well as stay for more.

Sit down with your marketing team and create a long term strategy of how you will engage your fans.

3. Being Boring or Predictable

When thinking about marketing, some venue owners forget that Facebook is a social place where people share things they find funny, interesting or useful with their friends. Think about what kind of content your fans would actually want to share when planning your posts.

Your job is to mix it up. The moment you become predictable, boring or annoying, they’ll hide you from their feed. So keep it varied and personal — a video here, a photo here, a tag of one of your fans here.”

Creating too much “filler” content by auto-publishing content from your blog or Twitter feed can also hurt you, as many businesses see this as the easy way to go.  Whatever you do , do not put everything on auto-pilot.  You will loose touch with your fans and hinder what you are actually trying to accomplish here.

Examples

• Create a podcast for your venue (Mansion’s “No Sleep Till Miami”)
• Run a contest for free tickets to an event
• Tag DJs coming to your venue, mentioning their fan page on your posts

4. Violating Facebook’s Terms

Not only is it critical to know how Facebook works and what tools are available, it’s also important to know the rules of the road — something that many businesses miss. Like for example very few businesses use the “info” tab on their pages correctly or bother with making custom landing pages for facebook.

Here are some common violations;  Some Venues will build a community on a personal page instead of a proper Facebook Page. Others don’t abide by Facebook’s rules around running contests. And don’t even think about “tagging” people who are in an image without their permission.

To avoid common mistakes, invest time in learning about the Facebook platform (API), educate yourself on how to build and sustain an audience, and don’t forget to engage with people like you do in real life.