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Facebook: It ain’t just for memes and baby pictures.

An overwhelming number of ticket buyers will find your TicketLeap event page through Facebook, which makes the design and placement of a “Buy Tickets” widget absolutely paramount. One of TicketLeap’s most widely used marketing tools is the event widget, which is completely free and surprisingly simple to implement on your Facebook page.

When customers visit your Facebook page, they can click your “Box Office” tab to check out your upcoming events.

After customers add an event ticket to their cart, they will automatically be redirected to TicketLeap to complete their transaction on our safe and secure website.

So, how do you set up your Facebook widget? It’s easy. Hover your mouse over the “Promote” tab on your TicketLeap dashboard, and then click “Widgets.” From here, you can select which events you’d like to include, and even customize the colors for your widget.

Head over to Facebook and download the Static HTML app. Click the star “Welcome” tab on your Facebook page, then select “HTML.” Copy and paste the widget HTML code from TicketLeap into this box, then select “Save and Publish.” If you’d like, you can edit the name and icon of your widget tab by clicking on the top right corner of the tab itself. You’re all set!

Of course the Internet is the fastest way to promote your event, whether it’s via an email blast, Tweet, or Facebook post. But that doesn’t mean that the real world should be neglected! Take these tips and spread the word IRL (in real life). You’d be surprised at how much a little face-to-face action can impact your ticket sales.

1. Put Your Team On The Street

Work with you have- it doesn’t take much to put together a street team. Gather your interns, ask a couple of loyal family members or offer free tickets to fans in exchange for a few hours of labor. Print flyers that cover the “5 Ws” (Who, What, When, Where, Why) and include a QR code that will link smart phone users directly to your TicketLeap event page. Grab a stapler and some tape and start attacking telephone poles, cafe shop windows and campus bulletin boards. Keep in mind who your target audience is.

2. Be Prepared

Keep event materials on you at all times. Does your event organization have an awesome logo? It should. Order stickers (for great quality, we like stickermule) and start slapping them on goods like laptops, phones, and reusable water bottles. Stick ‘em anywhere you want to make your brand known.

3. Tell The Media

Hit up your local newspaper via telephone or email with a pitch or a press release about your organization. Lots of publications have event calendars published in the back of the paper. Don’t think your event is big enough to warrant publication? You’d be surprised how many “small” events get printed up in the paper.

4. Word of Mouth

Before the Internet, people had to invite each other to events via a telephone call or wait until they met person. Believe it or not, this method still works! Drop details of your event to your neighbors, your friends, and your coworkers. Some people still rely on “the real world” to learn their news (instead of the online world). Take advantage of this!

5. Show Up!

Want to sell out your event? Go to other people’s events. Check out MeetUp and find events in your area that are relevant to you and your organization. Talk with other event organizers. Connect with attendees. Chat up your events (keep those flyers and stickers handy!) and remember to smile. If people see you having fun, they’ll be sure to know that you throw a fun event.

Here at TicketLeap, we’re all about making sure that an event is the best experience for everyone. From the event organizer to the people who attend, our whole mission is to make the process – from planning the event, to buying your ticket, to sharing your experiences – an awesome time. For event organizers, one of the biggest roadblocks of planning an event can be getting the word out. In a quick Q&A, TicketLeap CEO Chris Stanchak gives you his top 5 tips for promoting your event – and keeping your sanity.

1) Why is it important for me to market my event?
Every audience at every event in the world is there because of marketing- whether you realize it or not. Simply put, marketing is the only way people are going to find out about your event. There’s a lot of competition out there; people have a ton of options to choose from for things to do. Promoting your event is a way for the world to know about all of the time and energy you’ve put in, and to see the results of your hard work.

2) I really don’t have a ton of extra time for marketing, so what are some time-effective ways to promote the event?
Spreading the word about your event doesn’t need to be all-consuming. There are a slew of easy ways to reach a large audience. First, you need to spend some time thinking about who your audience is, and who you’re trying to reach. We’ve seen the most success when event organizers reach a great, targeted group of people who are very excited about the event, and use their passion and enthusiasm to help spread the message of the event. Social media is an excellent way to do this – you can create a Facebook page and a Twitter profile without spending any money, and it allows you to stay engaged with your followers and for your core audience to share and talk about the event. Traditional media (radio spots, TV commercials, etc.) can be both time-consuming to produce and expensive. If that sounds scary, you probably shouldn’t be doing it, so unless you’re flush with time and money, we recommend going old school. Use flyers and postcards to reach the audience you’ve identified. Another time-friendly way to amp up your marketing is to create time-sensitive incentives, like ‘buy your ticket today and get early admission, free parking, drink tickets, etc.’ Making your tickets desirable right now helps encourage people to buy them immediately.

3) I’m a small venue, and on a budget. Isn’t marketing expensive?
Promoting your event doesn’t need to break your budget! Set aside a little money (even if it’s a few hundred dollars) to go towards marketing. We also recommend leveraging the people, venues, and influencers that you’re working with to help spread the message of your event. Local partners and sponsors are a great resource; cross marketing has been very successful for venues we’ve worked with in the past. In the months leading up to your event, you can determine if your marketing strategy is working, or if you need to switch gears, by checking out the analytics of your event. We let our event organizers track just about everything to determine which campaigns are working. You can tell which partners are generating the most sales for your event, where ticket buyers are coming from, and which attendees are the most influential.

4) What tools should I use to promote my event?
I can’t stress enough how important it is to have an online presence for your event. Set up Facebook and Twitter to encourage interaction with your audience and stay connected with them. If you don’t have a website for your venue, I’d recommend creating one; using a publishing platform, like Tumblr, is the most fool-proof way to create a professional, visual site. I mentioned this before, but we’ve seen huge success with offline marketing as well – go back to the days before cell phones and the internet and distribute postcards or mailers to promote your event.

5) After my event is over, is there anything I should do to encourage attendees to attend future events?
You shouldn’t have to start your marketing efforts from scratch every time you have an event. Try to get as much information from event attendees as possible; it makes it easier to keep in touch on social networks and create a list of people to reach out to for your next event. Make sure that your dialogue with your event attendees stays fresh; thank your guests for coming and continue reaching out even if you don’t have another event coming up right away. To do that, you can ask for feedback, invite attendees to follow you, encourage event goers to post photos to your Facebook wall, and then offer rewards for staying in touch. You can also give past attendees a discount before it’s offered to others. We think establishing a loyal customer base is really important for spreading the message of your event and standing out from your competition.

There you have it, straight from the mind of the guy who’s trying to change the way you experience an event. Hope these tips help to spread the word for your next event!

Hey there and welcome to TicketLeap! We’re so happy to have you, and to prove it – we’ve put together a quick list of how to get the most out of your TicketLeap experience and what you can expect from us. Once you’ve created a TicketLeap account, you’ll want to do the following:

1.  Fill out all of the information that you can.

When you’re filling out your event’s information, make sure that you don’t leave any blank spots. Remember to include contact information, venue size and location, parking details, etc. You can customize your page even more extensively by adding photos to your media gallery, giving yourself a logo and slogan, and uploading a background image to enhance your brand. Also, practice makes perfect for creating an event page – we recommend practicing setting up an event page before your final page goes live. Saves you a lot of time, trust us. We want you and your customers to be as happy as possible.

2. Tap into social media channels.

Did you know that most people spend 22 percent of their time on social media? TicketLeap loves that – and we want you to love it too. Be sure to add pictures, media links, and other cool features to your event page. Get on Twitter and tweet about your awesome event – we’ll even tweet you back and get a convo going! You can also take that time you spend on Facebook and use it to rock your event – create a page and get people excited! Get social on Twitter and Facebook.

3. Go mobile.

Download our free mobile app. We’re constantly working to make buying and selling tickets a fun experience, and our mobile app is one way to do that. Event pages are streamlined and allow mobile users to search for an event and easily purchase the tickets online. e-Tickets come with a confirmation code and Quick Response (QR) code – which makes getting into an event a breeze (see #4).

4. Incorporate a stress-free check-in.

Listen, we know that the hours leading up to the event can be very stressful. We don’t want you to have to worry about checking in guests on top of everything else. You can customize how you want to run your check-in process– you can use your Android or iPhone, a barcode scanner, guest list, or even do a throwback and print out the attendee list. Here at TicketLeap, we believe that having a number of options lets you stay in control of your event.

5. Customize an event.

As we said, we want you to be in total control of your event. We recently launched our self-service, reserved seating feature, and couldn’t be happier to share it with you. This new feature lets you build out your exact venue, offer different prices for tickets, and cater to the needs of your attendees. Plus, event-goers can also view seating options and select their ticketing preferences when purchasing tickets to an event. Long gone are the days of ‘general admission’ tickets – the customization of your event is limitless.

We hope this gives you a good idea of what to expect and how to best use our features.  We’re so stoked to have you with us here at TicketLeap!

As social media rapidly starts to take over a big chunk of our day-to-day, it’s easy to get confused or lost as to which networks you should be a part of.  While TicketLeap tries to hit them all, here’s a quick briefing on our faves.

Twitter

Why you should follow us on Twitter:  If you want links to pop culture news, funny .gifs and videos, informative retweets about upcoming events in your area,  live tweets from Philadelphia-based events or if you just want to engage in conversation with our community manager, Allison Berger (she’ll respond to your tweets in mere minutes- say hi!).  Twitter is a balance of constant news broadcast and boatloads of entertainment.

Facebook

Facebook is no doubt the mother of all social networks, and for good reason. It’s the biggest, the best, and hey, you’ll be able to buy stock in it real soon. Why you should “like” us on Facebook: If you prefer less frequent updates than Twitter, if you like to discuss your events with other TicketLeap users, if you like your newsfeed to tell you what’s going on in your area. Our promise to you: We will never, ever sync Facebook and Twitter content- so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t want to engage with us on both platforms.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the up-and-comer who found its niche in the world of social media faster than anyone expected. “Re-pin” or share, comment and like images that serve as visual inspiration on a digital “board.” You should “follow” us on Pinterest if you love Philadelphia, want visual updates on how the TicketLeap platform is expanding, or if you have a penchant for Wizard World, Anime or Haunts. The cool thing about Pinterest is that you aren’t obligated to follow all of a user’s content. If you love Haunted Houses but just aren’t into Comic-Con, you can choose to follow just that particular board.  Pinterest is easy, customizable and most of all- addicting.

Tumblr

Tumblr reaches out to the artist in all of us. By following and “reblogging” other Tumblr users’ posts, Tumblr creates a community that depends heavily on sharing and liking niche topics. The platform is incredibly simple: choose text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio or video and start posting.  You should “follow” us on Tumblr if you dig pretty pictures of Philadelphia, want links to our blog posts, love vintage photos, or want to watch YouTube videos of what the office is listening to right now.

That’s a wrap. See you in the social sphere!