What is the best way to spread the word about an event? Trying to recruit new people to try new things is something that I find difficult because I have to convince a total stranger that he/she wants to do something that might seem completely random. Maybe he/she has done it before; maybe he/she never wants to do it; who knows? However, the way I went about inviting people to try something new to some and familiar to others is through a Facebook event invitation.
Success? Not so much, at least not yet. Let’s talk about the rhetorical situation of Facebook events, especially for events that need mass invites. First, if I want people to accept the invitation to try something new, and I don’t know them well, I think it is difficult to give them just facts without a personality behind the message and hope that they come. People know not only nothing about the event, but they also don’t know anything about the person inviting them. Also, not needing to physically say, “no” or decline the invitation makes it easy just to deny the opportunity with the click of a mouse.
This way, there is almost a snowball effect. People can be persuaded to choose to go or not depending on how many people they see as “attending,” even though many times those people do not even go. When they see many people under the “declined” category and only a few under “attending” and “maybe,” they assume the event is not worth their time and click “decline invite” too.
This results in only the people who were initially interested going, and other people not thinking again about the event. Another part of the problem is how much value new people can perceive in the event. If they think it will not teach them anything new, that they will not have fun, that they will feel awkward, or that they think it is purely a waste of time, they see no value, don’t spread the event through word of mouth, and attendance flat-lines. So, in this case, Facebook turns out to be the impersonal place where people act on impulse with the click of a mouse in many cases. Hopefully the two seconds the thought crosses people’s minds to try something new plants a seed that will grow into a burst of ambition in the future.
I think there could be hundreds studies done (and I'm sure there currently are) that simply research Facebook and the effect it has had (and will continue to have) on society. For one, it has changed the definition of "friendship" pretty majorly. Before, a friend was only someone you really. Now, people are Facebook friends with other people even if they don't know them, just because of the mutual friends they have with the person, or for a variety of other factors. Facebook events, as you mentioned, are a way of inviting more people to an event than previously possible. The downside of this is the invitations go to people you don't know very well, and the Snowball effect you mentioned can potentially ruin an event's attendance.
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