People like to see and read things that relate to their daily live (and especially their communities, local or online). If you look at event pages with high engagement on Facebook you’ll notice something that all of them have in common: Faces, faces, faces. You can use these examples as inspiration for your next social media campaign and focus on the people and the experience, not the event.

1. How a Small Art Event Went Viral &
Became a Local Sensation

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Intro
In the book Make It Stick, brothers Chip and Dan Heath tell the story of
Hoover Adams, the longtime editor of the Daily Record in Dunn, North
Carolina.

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Dunn is small town with a population of 14,000 people, mostly blue collar
workers. The Daily Record is read by 114% of local households (many
houses buy 2 copies), and has survived multiple crises in the printing
industry.

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If you ask Adams why his paper has been so successful he’ll give you
a deceptively simple answer:

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“It’s because of three things: Names, names names."

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Viral Success

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Adams goes on to explain that his paper is
popular in the local community because he
mentions local people and prints pictures
of them at local events.
If the story doesn’t involve someone from
the local community then it isn’t printed in
the Daily Record.
He even jokes that he could reprint the local
phone directory and his readership would go
up!

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People like to see and read things that relate to their daily live (and
especially their communities, local or online).

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If you look at event pages with high engagement on Facebook you’ll
notice something that all of them have in common: Faces, faces, faces.

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Let’s take an updated example from the world of social media. Niki
Gamboa is a local artist from Sacramento who teaches weekly art classes at
local wineries and breweries.
Her classes are part of the 'paint and sip' phenomena that has become a big
business in the last few years. She provides the canvases, materials and wine
or beer, guest pay for the class and any refills.

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It is new trend but there are already franchises hosting events and the
market is getting crowded. Gamboa needed a way to make her events
stand out and become the staple ‘paint and sip’ class in the affluent
suburbs of Sacramento (a huge market for these events).

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Gamboa guessed that social media would be a good way to engage her
local audience and sell tickets online.

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She didn’t need to go viral in the way we usually think of (1 billion views
on YouTube) but on a micro-scale in small local subset of stay-at-moms,
retired women and young female professionals looking for an after work
activity.

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She didn’t need to go viral in the way we usually think of (1 billion views
on YouTube) but on a micro-scale in small local subset of stay-at-moms,
retired women and young female professionals looking for an after work
activity.
Like her!

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At the end of each event Gamboa would line up all the new artists and
their paintings for a group shot, as well as individual shots of every artist
and their work, and groups of friends.
She’s then upload all of the pictures on her personal and business
Facebook Page.

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She tags as many of the pictures as possible, and encourages other to tag
the pictures too.
Tagged pictures showed up on attendees friends' News Feeds.

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Resulting in thousands of free impressions on what was essentially an ad
for the class (actually it was an ad for the experience, which is why it was
effective).

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This started a conversation,
which Gamboa monitored and
joined in on.
Attendees would comment on
their picture saying how much
fun they’d had, leading to dozens
of trustworthy testimonials, and
recommend the event to their
friends.

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Gamboa’s business has seen explosive growth because of her Facebook
marketing, and in less than a year it has turned into a full-time job
teaching weekly art classes and moving into private classes for parties.

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She was able to achieve what big brands and companies spend millions of
dollars on - targeting a relevant market, engaging them organically, and
translating that engagement into sales.
Without any marketing or social media experience and 0 dollars spent on
advertising!

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Adams and Gamboa both implicitly understood people and the platforms
they used to connect with them, they focused on Names and Faces in
their local area and achieved big success.
You can use these examples as inspiration for your next social media
campaign and focus on the people and the experience, not the event.

23. Get Started
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