Just recently, Facebook again changed their policies, which in result has affected all musicians online quite substantially. The new Facebook event policy states that users can only invite up to 500 people each, but if “a large number of invites” aren’t responded to on a regular basis, you’ll be limited to even fewer for “a short period of time.” Yep, that’s right, 500. And if you’re confused by the even further limitations, let us clarify that for you. For artists that have booked a lot of shows, they may find themselves with a cap as low as 50 if users are not responding to the huge amount of invitations, which can be very frustrating when needing to promote an event. Playing to an empty room is quite possibly musician’s worst fear, and with these restrictions, this could possibly become a reality.
For up-and-coming musos, this policy change is a really big problem. We don’t quite have the funding for advertising, and social tools – like Facebook – have been a go to for free self-promotion. So how are we meant to get around this restriction without dishing out a lot of money?
As many would know, there are a few loopholes when it comes to Facebook advertising. Although you may be capped, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole event invite list is also capped. To get more people attending your event, encourage everyone to invite friends. Each user has the same cap restrictions, but if 5 people all use their full allocation, that’s 2.5k people! It’s called social media for a reason, and your audience play an important role in the success of your band.
There is also nothing stopping artists from sharing the event. Make sure that you, as well as all parties involved, share the event multiple times. This gains a lot more traction, and ensures that people are seeing the event in the feed. To add, also make sure that all of the posts in the event are continuing to be engaged with. Liking and commenting on these posts results in Facebook recognising the event as ‘desirable’ content for audiences, therefore ranking the event higher in users’ news feeds.
Don’t forget, if you find yourself being limited even further (to 50 invites), it is only temporary. Continue to check back, or invite people in intervals to guarantee that you are making the most of your allocation of invites.
