Hosting an event is a great way to gain exposure for your company or product.  However, how do you get word out there that you are running event and what platform should you use to manage attendance?  Eventbrite is perhaps the best-known event management and ticketing site.  You can use the service to browse, create and promote local events.  The good news is that as an event organiser, there is no cost to set up an event here (the small fee charged on top of the ticket price allows this).  The even better news is that if your event is free then there are no fees to your attendees (although we’d advise charging a small fee to gain commitment from attendees)!

So how do you use Eventbrite to set up and promote your event?  This guide on EventBrite will help you set up your business page and any events you are hosting:

• Log in and add your organiser profile
• Create your event page – don’t forget the tags as these will help enormously with searches
• Publish and share your event

Set Up

If this is your first time using Eventbrite then as a new organiser to the platform, you will be asked a series of questions like your experience, how many event you think you might run in a year, size of the event and then what are you interested in (selling more tickets, growing my brand etc). Based on this information, they will build a customised organiser page for you with lots of extra resources (articles, courses and a link to their help centre).

Event Creation

Once you’ve read up on all the background information, you should be ready to set up your event. Remember to be clear as possible and include plenty of keywords.  You will be sharing this link on your social media so think about relevant hashtags.  When you add a tag it will come up with suggested hashtags so you can pick the most popular and ones that might link in with your social media.  You will then be asked to provide an image. Eventbrite recommend 2160 x 1080px either a JPEG or PNG, max size 10MB and say that 82% of attendees would like to see a main event image that will reflect the vibe of the event. We highly recommend designing your own in Canva!  You then have other boxes to fill in where you have the chance to provide more information about your event.  Again, remember to populate with keywords where you can.  Once you are happy with this, you can press publish.

Event Promotion

Now you have a link for your event, you will need to promote this. Eventbrite Boost is a good place to start (you can trial this free for 14 days). Go to Manage my Events and then click on the Marketing icon.  You’ll be able to create email campaigns, add your event to Facebook and create social ads.   However, many of Eventbrite’s suggestions can be managed outside Eventbrite using a variety of tools available to you for free:

• Email marketing – set up a newsletter using mailchimp (free for up to 1000 contacts/emails per month)
• SEO – link your website and social media to the Eventbrite event and vice versa
• Social Media – set up as an event on Facebook and use your Eventbrite link throughout your other social media (Twitter, Instagram etc)

If you want to go one step further and create a landing page for your website then we recommend watching this Emarketeers video about their event planning landing page templates for your website.

Red Desk are here to help you with your event management: from set up of events on Eventbrite through to promotion via social media. Email mel@reddesk.co.uk for more information.