Why Are Businesses Making Loads Of Fake Facebook Events?

You may have set yourself as ‘going’ to one of many Facebook events that quite clearly a joke… Why have so many popped up out of nowhere?

From making an entrance like Theresa May and Admiring the same photo of Jim Bean, to Bringing Henry Hoover for a picnic and even boozing up for Wilson. There are quite literally events for everything, usually hosted by random events company, venue or festival.

They get shared around and ironically highly attended to a degree that they become the most popular piece of content, more popular than any other event they ever created - in spite of the fact it’s not actually real.

I mean, let’s break a couple of these down - Boozing Up For Wilson. Perfectly timed parody event when everyone was at their saddest during the (spoiler) demise of Wilson in the darkly hilarious comedy “Friday Night Dinner.” Admittedly strong levels of engagement with the event - 11k going, 41k interested, with the company (I’ll get to them in a second) posting regular memes pairing topical news of the day with Wilson’s owner, Jim (interlaced with some slight sales message usually) to over a thousand reactions per post.

And now the owner - a fake Freshers’ Week events provider Plymouth Freshers 2018/2019. As a quick aside, I know I’ve moved on from my days of marketing at a local Students’ Union into better times, but that doesn’t mean I’m no less annoyed by these parasites. 

Announcing events without actually reserving a venue for it because you want to “gauge the interest” first, even though you sell tickets at a high mark up from the get go. Traditional marketing channels aren’t what you do, you essentially hire student reps to be your lackeys in this operation - blissfully unaware they are selling a con.

And what happens when the event doesn’t happen? Well of course, the terms state you don’t give refunds. It’s a disgusting behaviour, intentionally deceiving people who have just come to town for the experience of a lifetime for the sake of a quick profit.

But, breathing heavily after that frustrated outpouring, I digress.

Besides the very small population of Plymouth freshers who found this group (717 fans and counting), who on earth are these other 14 thousand people that are interested? Last time I checked, I’m not a university student (my ever-increasing level of grey hairs indicates this strongly), so at the end of the day, this event isn’t actually helping you sell anything or get your brand out there.

It’s a pointless engagement, which does nothing but relegate the brand personality to nothing more than a “oh look, here’s something funny” persona, rather than actually offering anything of substance. I didn’t know that SandFest was actually behind the Bring Your Henry Hoover To The Beach until I researched it for this article, and I’m confident their ticket sales levels would reflect that.

However, do not let this be taken as a total condemnation of trolling the social media giant’s forms of interaction. I’m as much of a fan of clicking attending on a giant piss up on Brexit night as much as the next person. In fact, the Jim Bean event is made by a Jim Bean appreciation/meme page, so that’s perfect!

Clearly, engagement is a good thing on Facebook… Bit of a “duh” moment for me to even be talking about that. But for that engagement to be at the detriment of everything else your company does is not ideal. 

It turns you company’s social presence into a glorified meme page, with no real hope of being taken seriously.

Also fake freshers’ pages suck.

ENJOY READING? PLEASE VOTE FOR THE FUTURE

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, please take two seconds and vote for NRM in the UK Blog Awards. Just tap the button, to find out how. It only takes 30 seconds.