Inspiring Ideas
for your successful ACW event
This “Inspiring Ideas” post follows up on the previous article about creating a dedicated website for your ACW event. Creating a Facebook page dedicated to your event is a free and productive tool to work alongside a website or to act as the centerpiece of your event’s web presence. Not only can you use the page to promote your event, but you can also use it all year long to foster support for craft in your community and recruit enthusiastic people to join the effort of planning and implementing your event.
Western North Carolina (WNC) has a long rich history of handmade craft and will continue to remain leaders in the industry because artists, retailers and patrons join forces to make stuff happen! One such group is simply called American Craft Week in Western North Carolina, and their mission is to “bring together individuals, small businesses and organizations in recognition of the countless ways handmade objects enrich our daily lives and contribute to our national aesthetic and economy.” Sherry Masters of the planning committee tells ACW that one of their keys to a successful week in October is running a Facebook page.
This exemplary page always has ready-made fresh content because it grabs news from all of the area participants in ACW. WNC uses the Facebook culture of invitations to drum up a crowd. “We invite you to join American Craft Week this year! We will be promoting all the great craft businesses in WNC. If you are an artist, gallery, museum, craft organization or art business we want you to be part by telling your story!” Participants will be compelled to join knowing the group’s Facebook page will in turn promote them. Another key invitation is publicizing when and where committee meetings take place and encouraging new people to attend. You might be surprised with the amount of help you receive when the public knows how much fun ACW will be!
Don’t think you have time to administer a Facebook page? Share the load. Try giving your page three administrators. Give each admin the responsibility of posting content once per week on an allocated day.
Here are some inspiring ideas for your own dedicated Facebook page:
- Invitations to planning meetings
- Posts promoting participants’ events year round
- News stories about craft and the region
- Facebook events open to the public for your ACW events
- Profile and cover photos borrowed from facebook.com/AmericanCraftWeek
- Hashtags, including #ACW2015
- Ask questions to encourage comments
- Set goals for page likes and reach
- Like the pages of other ACW participants and craft organizations
