Does your municipality have the best strawberry festival? Are you trying to get a new music or arts fest off the ground? Does your local farm market need to draw more customers or vendors? Your social media channels can be your best (and most cost-effective) way of spreading the word to audiences that traditional advertising or communications can’t reach. The world at large is literally within your grasp on social media.
Using your local government’s social media channels, you can help local businesses and organizations to draw larger crowds to events, boosting tourism to your region and supporting economic growth. Promoting local events can also help you connect with community organizations and your constituents in fun and creative ways, beyond just posting board meeting schedules, agendas, and weather or traffic alerts.
Here are some tips to keep in mind to maximize your efforts:
- Set up an ‘event’ on Facebook. You can invite people to attend and give them the ability to set a reminder on Facebook. Check out this link to learn how to create an event: www.facebook.com/help/210413455658361
- Encourage followers to share or retweet your posts to exponentially expand the audience that sees your event’s information
- Make multiple posts about the event, on different days and at varying times, to reach the greatest number and diversity of potential attendees
- If it’s an annual event, post fun photos from the previous year; if this is the first year, post photos of event preparations to help build excitement
- Highlight specific performing acts or in-event activities that will be taking place
- Work with neighboring communities to share event info
- For more tips and best practices, check out these links:
