Attracting New Event Attendees on Facebook

Your organization is on Facebook, right? Everyone is these days, it seems, but are they all seeing results from their use of the site, or is Facebook a bandwagon for nonprofits that’s not going anywhere?

Earlier this year we surveyed hundreds of nonprofit staff members already using Facebook at their organizations and asked about their results. Had they seen an increase in constituent base attributable to Facebook? Initial data revealed successful results in all five categories: donors, members, volunteers, clients and event attendees.

Organizations saw the most success attracting new event attendees. More than 70 percent of respondents reported positive impact—specifically, that they’d gotten more than “one or two” attendees, coded as “a few” or a “substantial” number. Interviewees noticed the ability of Facebook to build enthusiasm for events when people repost and share events with their friends.

A slim majority of organizations found success encouraging people to take advantage of their services—55 percent of organizations that work with other nonprofits attracted new members, while about 52 percent said they attracted new clients. 

People weren’t as successful converting Facebook fans into donors or volunteers, however—only about 40 percent reported success with either. Many organizations said they used the Causes.com Facebook application as a fundraising tool to varying degrees of success, but some respondents expressed frustration over recent changes to the Causes interface. Interviews suggest that while Facebook may not be as strong at recruiting new volunteers as organizations expect, it’s a good way to retain and engage existing volunteers. One interviewee reported using Facebook as a community for current volunteers spread out across different locations.

The data suggests a correlation between an organization’s success attracting a constituent and the level of commitment required of that constituent. Attending one event requires less of a time commitment than volunteering would, and neither require giving money—Facebook users may feel their online relationships are more casual or informal than most organizations hope, or expect.

In short, on the surface Facebook is a great way to attract new event attendees, and to manage their invites and RSVPs, in part because you have access to the built-in audience of all your friends’ networks. But remember that events don’t end with the invite. As with other goals on Facebook, the results reported to us suggested that sending out reminders and starting discussions can turn a “maybe” into a “yes” and increase the eventual turn-out, which means you need to nurture your audience rather than just sitting back and watching it grow.

To learn more, read our full report, Using Facebook to Meet Your Mission: Results of a Survey.