I Was Invited to What? - A Lesson on Event Etiquette

We've all fallen victim to it. You log on to Facebook and become giddy with excitement when you notice a new event notification. Sadly, you discover it was only an invitation to participate in some new free trial or to add your number to your friend's new phone. To me, these kinds of "invitations" have ruined what was a genius addition to Facebook. Were these people not thinking? Did they just send a mass announcement to all of their Facebook friends (which we all know does not equal real-life friends)? The answer to both of these questions is- most likely. It is time to change what I call "Facebook event etiquette." I have broken Facebook events into two simple categories: real and fake (simple enough?), plus I have numerous tips on how to use them skillfully.

Real Events
1) Weddings, Parties, and Celebrations
What makes these worthy of being named "real" events? Well, most obviously, they have a set date, time, and location. Also, the number of guests attending is reasonable or contained. So, why is it acceptable to use Facebook events to invite guests to your celebration? First, Facebook provides the option of making events private. This allows only the people you invite to RSVP. Also, it can helps those throwing the party to get a more precise count of how many people will be attending. There is no need to prepare for 500 guests when only 50 actually show up. Finally, Facebook events help the couple-on-a-budget (aren't we all?) cut back on costs. Planning a wedding can be expensive and Facebook events don't cost a dime, not to mention they're eco-friendly.
On the downside, there are a few cons to passing out these electronic invitations. If the event isn't made private, it is nearly impossible to get an exact count of attendees. People hit "attend" because it takes half a second to click the mouse. There is no real commitment, unlike traveling to the Post Office and sending back a physical RSVP. Also,  friends tend to pass it along to other "uninvited" friends, and before you know it little Johnny's 5th birthday party has a guest list the size of New York City. Now, what did we learn from this? Make your Facebook events private for intimate gatherings, otherwise you never know who could show up.

2) Concerts, Community Activities,  and Promotional Events
These kinds of events are similar to the first group, but intend to reach a larger audience. From a business standpoint, Facebook events can be great tools to gauge an audience's interest and in the end, determine the event's success. A great example of this is an IU student's quest to get Lil' Wayne to perform at the 2011 Little 500. Only 400 signatures were compiled with a paper petition, but once this cause was made into a Facebook event, an astounding 50,000 said they would attend. Facebook events are also great ways to advertise happenings with your business or within you community. If you are in charge of promoting things like your local farmer's market, an area concert, or a 5k, then a Facebook event can be a great tool. However, if 300 people RSVP on Facebook and only 100 show up, then you know that you need to explore different avenues.
You should proceed with caution when promoting these events on Facebook. As Peter Shankman says, know your audience. Don't invite your college roommate that lives in Texas to attend Bloomington's town-wide yard sale. Get the information out to relevant people that are capable of attending. Also, encourage those people to invite their neighbors or friends in the area. So, what did we learn this time? Facebook events can be a great promotional tool, as long as they are reaching the right people.

Fake Events
1) "Swam with my phone - list your number"

All I have to say about this is, really people? I have come to two conclusions about people who send these out: 1) They're lazy or 2) They're desperately trying to get the number of a member of the opposite sex. I'll admit, this is a good way to reach a large amount of people on Facebook. However, in most cases it's known as spam. Perhaps a more acceptable route would be to send a few of your close friends an inbox message and ask them to share numbers from their contact list. Even better, technology has advanced so far that we are now capable of linking our Facebook contacts with the contact list in our phones. Well look at that, you don't event have to ask anyone now! Seriously though, this is the kind of thing that contributed to the loss of seriousness around Facebook events. What did we learn here? Don't spam your friends.

2) The case of Lauren Spierer
The previous Facebook event was comical, at the most. However, this "fake" event is very, very serious. It is an example of how these types of events can be put to extremely good use and exactly why I am proud to be a part of this social media generation. Lauren Spierer went missing at 4:30 a.m. on Friday, June 3rd around 11th and College in Bloomington, In. As of today, June 17, she has still not been found. There is a Facebook event named "URGENT! Please help spread the word about Lauren Spierer's disappearance!" that was created to raise awareness about her disappearance and bring her home. Three weeks haven't even passed and this event has over 230,000 attendees. Now that is the power of social media. Links to news organizations, donation websites, and downloadable flyers are provided in the event description. Smart people go straight to where they know they can reach nearly 800 million people - Facebook and Twitter. Now, the search for Lauren is actually a real event. Every day people set out to look for her and the only thing I think this page could add are the times that search parties depart, which are 11:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. daily. If you have any information on her disappearance call the Bloomington Police Department's tip line at 812-339-4477. Her family has offered a $100,00 reward for any information that solves her case. Visit FindLauren.com or follow @NewsOnLaurenS on Twitter for more information. For the last time, what did we learn? "Fake" Facebook events can do a lot of good, like spreading the word about a missing college student.
Here are photos of a white pick-up truck that police are searching for in hopes that it has information on Lauren's case. Surveillance video shows this truck circling the block where Lauren was last seen at approximately the same time she would have been walking through the area.

Tips for successfully creating a Facebook event, as told by the Publicity Hound:
1) Properly name the event - try giving it a catchy title that will make it memorable
2) Write a description that demonstrates the value of the event - explain why people should come
3) If you don't RSVP to your friend's events, chances are they won't RSVP to yours
4) Encourage friends to interact with your event on Facebook so the event will be noticed by others
5) Make time to answer any messages or wall posts you receive - don't let people lose interest in the event

Do you have any other tips for creating Facebook events? Let us know in the comments!

Please remember to send good thoughts to Lauren Spierer, her family, and friends.

SlingshotSEO Co-Founder Tells the Story of Search

Last weekend the Beth Wood Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America held a conference at Indiana University. 'Get Social: A Blueprint for Social Media Strategy' featured a plethora social media geniuses who combined have nearly 130,000 followers on Twitter.

 As a member of the Beth Wood Chapter, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the two-day event, as well as attend a variety of sessions. I attended Jeremy Dearringer's  breakout session called 'Social Media: A Revolution in Search.' While it wasn't as funny as listening to Jay Baer profess his love for tequila or watching Kyle Lacy draw on a projector screen with a dry erase marker (our apologies to the Kelley School of Business), it was a very intriguing discussion about search engine optimization. I'll admit, I was skeptical to take advice from a Purdue alum, but Jeremy quickly proved his knowledge in fields outside of agriculture.


Jeremy is the Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer at Slingshot SEO, Inc, a professional search engine optimization company that offers full-service consulting and Internet marketing services. Jeremy has been using SEO since 1997 and founded Slingshot SEO in 2006. Their goal is to help clients increase their search engine visibility and control online conversations.

Jeremy began his presentation by providing a brief history of search. We saw the evolution of search from Lycos in the 90's, Google's awakening in the early 2000's, and what it takes today to be relevant on the Internet. The presentation mainly focused on Google's dominance and the effects social media has on SEO.

The statistics he provided completely blew my mind.

• Google sites accounted for over 10 billion searches in February 2011, and that was just in the U.S.
• 1/3 of those searches occurred on YouTube
• Bing and Yahoo together accumulated only 5 billion searches

So what does this have to do with social media?

• Social media has interacted with SEO since 2003, the days of Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon, in terms of content marketing
• There are 460,000 Twitter accounts are created daily
• There are 500 million active Facebook users that spend an astonishing 700 billion minutes on Facebook per month
• Google recently introduced the +1 button, a new "social approval" tool

So what does this mean for you?
Search engines are beginning to incorporate social search rankings. Google and Bing are both working on opportunities to interact with searches influenced by people you know and see results that are shared by your friends. Curious to check out an event in your area? Soon you will be able to type it into Bing and see if any of your Facebook friends are attending. Jeremy said the goal is to create true brand advocates. The number of Facebook shares, likes, comments, and  tweets of URLs all have a similar effect on organic or algorithmic search as other optimization techniques. Here are a few tips Jeremy provided to help your website rank higher:

• Encourage social activity on your website or blog through share features that incorporate sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Don't ignore mobile devices - make sure your site is compatible with smart phones and tablets
• You need social media to win in search so find out what the experts are doing and make yourself relevant within their networks - get them to mention you on Twitter or follow their blogs

I walked away from his presentation with two critiques:
1. You know a man is extremely knowledgeable when his vocabulary is way over your head. Jeremy talked about meta tags, topic modeling, PageRank, organic search, and a lot of other terms I won't include because I don't know if I can even spell them. The only thing going through my head was, WHAT! I had to turn to the all-knowing Google just so I could write this blog without sounding like an idiot (which I'm not sure I completely avoided). I would have benefited more from this presentation had he not assumed that a senior PR student knew the basics around SEO - even though by senior year a PR student probably should know the basics of SEO.

2. I was left wanting more. I wanted to know more about SEO and how to use it for my blog. Aside from some helpful tips, we didn't actually learn how to utilize it.  I could really benefit from SEO considering that Google's PageRank probably doesn't even know where to find my blog. A few demonstrations incorporating SEO and social media would have made this session more constructive, especially since the majority of attendees were PR students obsessed with social media (let's be honest, what other major let's you play on Facebook all day?).

At the end of the day, I learned a lot from Jeremy on the importance of search, Google's algorithm, and social activity. I'll take his advice and try to use some optimization tools in my blog and see if I can get it to register in the Googleverse. As Jeremy said, the opportunity is now, so get out there and get noticed.

For more information about SEO, go to Slingshot SEO's blog at http://www.slingshotseo.com/blog/.

If you're interested in learning more about Google's power in search, checkout this book I'm reading called The Googlization of Everything by Siva Vaidhyanathan. 


Thanks again Jeremy for giving the presentation even though you were feeling a little under the weather. It really was insightful. Another thanks to my readers who actually made it to the bottom of this absurdly long post.

How to Host an Enjoyable Event

There are multiple elements that go into planning an event. However, the most crucial pieces are those that help guests feel comfortable. There are three ways to do this successfully: maintain a theme, choose the right venue, and give back to your guests.

Maintain a Theme
When I say "theme," I'm not talking about the way your high school prom was decorated as a "Hawaiian Luau" or "Masquerade Ball." Color palettes, patterns, and degrees of formality are great ways to invoke similarity throughout your event. Everything from invitations and decor down to the napkins should match. The goal is to maximize the guest's familiarity and minimize their uncertainty with your event. The Knot, the largest online wedding tool in the country, said invitations should be considered an "all-in-one" and provide guests with pertinent information like date and time, location, and dress code. Invitations are the first impression of your event and all following materials must fall into the same theme.

Choose the Right Venue
Different kinds of events require different types of venues. For example, business events and celebratory events should be held in venues that invoke different feelings. Don't pick the romantic lodge in the mountains to celebrate your company's fifth anniversary, go for the local convention center or reception hall. If the event is casual it could even be held at the company headquarters. Celebrations and weddings should be held at a space that is more decorated and has room for guests to move around. Resorts and hotels usually have a reception space with a room set aside for dancing. No matter what you're celebrating, make sure the venue has adequate supplies to handle the needs of your event. Before touring a venue, make a list of event necessities and pack samples of your event theme. Pick the venue that best merges these two aspects of your event.

Give Back to Your Guests
It is important to remember that your guests came to the event to support you. Improve their experience by doing something for them in return. This could be as simple as providing free dinner and drinks at the event. Preston Bailey, popular event designer in New York, says that buffet-style dinners are great ways to cut costs and help guests mingle. Take-home favors are another way to show guests your appreciation. Desserts in stylish takeout boxes are something guests can enjoy after they leave. If your event has a keynote speaker, see if they have a book that you can offer guests as a gift. Whatever you decide, it is important that guests walk away with a tangible memory of the great time they had at your celebration.

While successful events are attributed to a number of elements, the most important is how guests remember it. Keep guests in mind throughout the planning process and you can guarantee a large turnout at all of your events.

Coming soon: Event Promotion 101: Building Buzz in your Community

The Art of Planning

"Without leaps of imagination and dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning." - Gloria Steinem