Last year during the summer screening tour of Phoenix, Oregon, Facebook events were created for every screening.
They worked well to capture interest when:
- created several weeks in advance
- we knew people in the city so we could invite our Facebook friends
- friends shared the events on their personal pages and spread the word
- we promoted the events heavily and created organic sharing
On a few occasions, we used Facebook Ads to promote the events, although it was unclear if the ad spend made a difference. It definitely did not return a profit on the ad.
When we polled the audience, in several cities people attended because the event popped up in their Facebook feed that morning as “something to do today in your town.”
Because of this awareness alone, I was originally thinking we should add events as soon as possible. But the general consensus based on the team’s past experience is to wait to add Facebook events for weeklong (vs. one night) events until there are tickets to sell. It’s also important to be clear that screenings continue over multiple nights or weeks.
Now that the theaters have started posting advance ticket sales, we are slowly adding events with multiple screening times and links to tickets for opening weekend. It is tedious for our social team, but a valuable effort.
Theaters are signed up as co-hosts on the event pages and we will ask them to share the events on their social media as well.
Each event publicizes the Perfect 300 Challenge promotion in which we give away a complementary download of the film to the first 300 ticket holders. Theaters will be encouraged to share this promo as it is also great marketing for them. In many of these smaller markets, 300 attendees over one weekend is a major win for everyone.
We are three weeks out from theatrical, and this week we will be pushing press & media in all of the markets, engaging social media and building on the promotions that have already started.
♡ Annie