The big problem with Facebook is the limited reach your posts get.  The way Zuckerberg and co controls the platform means that only a certain percentage of your fans are ever likely to see your posts.  Wouldn’t it be great if you have a gig coming up if you definitely reach your fans (and more people besides) in that specific location?  Well if you are prepared to spend a little money you can do that by turning your post into an ad.  Here’s how you do it.

Create a Facebook post advertising the gig.  This could be an image and a ticket link or as we discussed yesterday a video.  If you are using an image, make sure there is little or no text in the image (less than 20%) otherwise it’ll be rejected by Facebook. Here’s an example of the former.

An example post with ticket link advertising an event. It only had a reach of 3%!

After the day or so, the post will stop getting new views through organic reach.  Now is the time to ‘Boost Post’ which allows you to turn the post into a paid ad.

Let’s have a look at what information you need to input.

Audience.  This is who you are going to target the ad to.  There are three options:

1. Show the post to people who like your page.
2. Show the post to people who like your page and their Facebook friends.  If you want more views, this is the option to go for.
3. Show the post to people who don’t like your page but who you can select using certain criteria.  This could be people who like fishing, people who like drinking beer etc.  More importantly, this search criteria could also be other bands.  So if you sound like the Foo Fighters and you think their fans would be interested in your music/your gig, you can target Foos fans or Queens of The Stone Age fans etc.

Location.  This is by far the best feature.   Here we can target the town/city where the ad is shown.  You can choose a total radius (eg 10 miles or 50 miles) outwards from that town/city and you can even select multiple cities if the post is advertising a tour.

Budget and Duration.  This is up to you of course, but the more you spend the bigger your reach.  I’d suggest choosing a small amount, boost the post for 7 days and then review the results to see if it’s worth spending more.