While Peoria Music Live is continuing to improve how we promote events, there are things that artists can do to help make sure that their shows are being seen as much as possible. One of these involves how the event page is created.

Some live music events, especially those that involve a collaboration of different bands, tend to have their event pages created on a personal profile as opposed to an artist, venue, or promoter Page.**

Using a personal profile to create events makes it more difficult for people to find your event, and more difficult for Peoria Music Live (or anyone else, for that matter) to promote it. I am hoping that by sharing this information, we can get more artists adding events to their Pages instead of their personal profiles!

Six ways using a Page to create an event improves your reach:

• The event will show up in the “Discover” section on Facebook. This means your event is more likely to show up for people who are just searching for something to do in the area on a particular day. When it’s listed with a personal profile as the creator, it’s more likely to be seen only by friends of those who are co-hosts.

• It will automatically show up on the calendars of everyone you add as a co-host. Every band added as a co-host who accepts the invitation will have the event automatically listed on their Page’s events.
  On the flip side of that, if a person creates an event page for a show that includes several bands, the bands can post about it and share it all they want. If a fan says, “I think I heard My Favorite Band is playing again this Saturday” and they don’t see it on the events page… they aren’t likely to dig further to see if there is a show.
  The events tab on your page functions as an anchor to pull your fans to your event pages.

• You get statistics. Only events created on Pages have these available to the co-hosts. Statistics don’t just tell you how many people saw your posts, but help you learn what types of posts reach your audiences better. If you have a 300 person jump from a live video inside your event page, you’ll know that it’s worth trying that again. If you share it to a particular Facebook group and only one person opens it, you’ll know to focus your efforts elsewhere!

• People can share and tag your event. Facebook assumes that events created on a personal profile are not commercial endeavors, even if they are “public.” They won’t let Peoria Music Live (or people posting as the band or venue Pages) tag them in posts or promotions.
  By creating events on a Page, you give us the ability to tag and share to our heart’s content.

• Your event can run a paid promotion. If you throw as little as a dollar a day at Facebook Advertising, they will make sure your event is seen more than others. This is especially true if you haven’t done it before.
  We’ve run into many issues while trying to create paid promotions for events that were created on personal profiles.

• You can add Peoria Music Live as a co-host. If an event is created on a Page, the creator can add other pages as co-hosts to the event, such as Peoria Music Live. Personal profiles can also be added to the event to give people the ability to edit information or make a post about the show.
  Events created on personal profiles can not add band, artist, or promoter Pages as co-host.

If you don’t have a “Page” you have a few options…

• Create One. It takes only a few minutes and it doesn’t have to be fancy. You can upload a profile photo and never post an update. It will still be worth it. Fans of yours will usually “like” it anyway, which means when you are ready to add content, there are already people waiting to see it!

• Ask the venue or another band that’s performing the same show to create one. As long as they are doing it from a “Page” they can still add you as a co-host and give you the ability to edit it.

• Ask Peoria Music Live. In the past I have created many events for local bands. It doesn’t work out well if I am in the only one creating events and you have several every month. But, if you are part of a live music event that needs an event page created for it, I’m more than happy to help out once in awhile.

If your event is already created from a profile page:

• Delete it and create a new one from a Page.

• Create a second one without deleting the first. This is fine as long as the information on both remains consistent. If you have multiple co-hosts and plenty of time before the event, I would suggest deleting the other one or posting a list in the older one to direct people towards the new one where information will be updated.

In any event, Peoria Music Live does have the ability to share any live music event that isn’t marked “private.” So if you’re having problems adding us as a co-host and you think this is why, send PML a message and I’ll try to help!

Also, don’t forget that while we offer all of our services for free when we post about or cover a random show… you can also book us or hire us to promote your show. Those options are located in the “Services” tab of our Facebook page!

A well organized, well promoted music scene is good for everyone! Thank you for helping us continue to improve the way Peoria Area artists do that!

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** “Page” here refers to a Page created for an artist, band, business, promoter, etc. When people choose to follow it, it will get “Likes.” When I say personal profile here, I am referring to a page meant for an individual that gains “Friends” instead of “Likes.”