Can You Advertise a Private Event on Facebook?

You can advertise a private event for your business on Facebook by creating an event page. This can be an effective form of promotion, as seen in the Netherlands in September 2012. Riot police were called out to manage more than 4,000 people who showed up for the birthday party of a teenage Dutch girl in September 2012 after she advertised the party as an event on her Facebook profile.

You can set up this page from your company's profile or fan page, if one exists, or from your personal profile if you don't have a company page. To set up a public event from your personal profile, click on the "Events" tab on the left hand side of your Facebook news feed page. If it isn't visible, choose "Apps"; when the list appears in the main window, look through it for events. Click "Create event" and insert the name, date, time and venue as well as any other details. On the drop-down list beside the privacy option, choose "Public" and click "Create."

If you have a company page, select "Event/milestone" above the status box. When the list of three options appears, choose "Event" and input the details of the planned event. You can choose whether users can post on the wall and whether or not to display the guest list. Once you have set up the event page, click on the "Settings" option to promote the page; you will have to switch to your personal profile to do this.

To create a business event to promote to Facebook friends only, use your personal profile to set up the page. Choose the "Friends" option from the privacy menu. Initially, only your Facebook friends will be able to see the event in their news feed, but once they respond to it by accepting or declining the invitation, a story about their action will appear in their own feeds. These posts will be visible to their friends, who will be able to join the event by clicking on it and choosing from the "Join," "Maybe" or "Decline" options. They will also be able to see the guest list for the event.

To keep a business event truly private, create the invitation from your personal profile and use the "Invite only" option. This makes it possible to choose only those people you want to see it. The users that you invite can read about the event, including news feed stories, updates and photographs. After you select this option, you'll be able to choose whether or not to show the guest list or to allow your guests to invite other friends. The invitation won't be visible in search results, so this option enables you to advertise it only to those you choose to invite.

Private business events created for the members of a group depend on the group's privacy settings. For closed and secret groups, only the group members can view or respond to the invitation, because only they have access to the group's wall. If the event is set up for an open group, such as small-business owners in your industry, the details are visible in search results. All users can read the details, but only group members can respond to the invitation.