Using Event Sites and Social Media to Grow Attendance and Registration

You’re hosting a startup event coming up, maybe a Founder Institute session or a local startup pitch night. You know it matters, you know it should be crowded, and you’ve sent out the obligatory newsletter to your mailing list. And now? Crickets.

Here’s the reality of how the internet works: your audience didn’t even see it.

Gmail shoves newsletters into the “Promotions” tab like a toddler hiding broccoli under mashed potatoes. Facebook suppresses organic reach to force you into advertising. LinkedIn lets one post ride high and quietly buries the next. And if you’re still thinking that one email blast is going to fill the room, you’re not running startup events, you’re running a wishful thinking experiment.

Events are your lifeblood. They’re where trust gets built and where startups discover you exist. It’s in person that community engagement turns into program enrollment and sponsors connect with your ecosystem. So, let’s talk about how to stop depending on a single channel and start using the tools available – Eventbrite, Meetup, Luma, Facebook Events, LinkedIn Events, even your own Groups and direct invitations – the way they’re meant to be used.

Your Startup Events Hub is the Anchor

Think of your event like a venture round: without a term sheet, everyone just talks about it but nothing closes. In event marketing, your “term sheet” is the primary event listing; the place where all roads should lead.

For Founder Institute chapters, that hub is your FI registration page. If you’re not an FI Director, the same principle applies: one primary listing where people can register. Then, syndicate everywhere else: Eventbrite, Meetup, and Luma are not “better” nor your preferred site (unless you want less engagement), they’re distribution channels. Think of them like being your Google for events. For example, people can’t stumble across your newsletter, but they do search Meetup to see what’s happening this week.

That means:

• Publish your event in one authoritative place (FI, your Venture Studio’s site, a Company page).
• Mirror that event on the major platforms, linking back to your hub.
• Ensure consistency of title, time, and branding across platforms so no one thinks they’re looking at different events.

Use Facebook, LinkedIn, and X

People get clever and think, “Well, our audience isn’t on Facebook” or “I don’t really use X (Twitter).” Stop being clever when reaching everyone. This isn’t about what you like; it’s about where your audience might be.

• Facebook is still the world’s largest social network, and it is unmatched for creating and promoting Events. Local founders, investors, students, and ecosystem lurkers will discover you here if you publish. Ignore it, and you’re missing the broadest swath of the community.
• LinkedIn is where credibility is earned. Events created here position you as a professional, not just another Meetup organizer. Startup founders and mentors actually check LinkedIn for opportunities.
• X (Twitter) is the live pulse of entrepreneurship. News spreads here. Trends start here. You might not like the chaos, but journalists, VCs, and ambitious entrepreneurs are still here, scrolling.

At minimum, you need to be on all three. Then, add whatever else works locally (TikTok, Discord, Slack, reddit subs, and Quora spaces) but don’t fool yourself into thinking you can skip the big three.

More to know to appreciate my point? There is a Startup Group for your community there, yes? Something on LinkedIn for your city, for entrepreneurs? An Innovation Group on Facebook? You have a local Founder Institute Group there so you can build a community, don’t you? Each of the event listings on Facebook and LinkedIn, should also be in those Groups, shouldn’t they??

Direct Invites: The Button You’re Not Clicking Enough

Here’s the magic no one seems to use: the Invite button.

On Facebook, you can invite members of your Group, or people who Like your Page, directly to an Event; you can also invite all of your friends. On LinkedIn, you can invite connections to your Company Page, to your Group, and to the Event itself. Both platforms limit how many invites you get each month, but you get invites to use and you’re letting them go to waste.

If you’re not maxing those out, you’re literally leaving growth on the table.

Here’s the play:

• Invite people to your Company Page.
• Invite people to your Startup Group or Local Chapter Group.
• Invite people directly to every Event you post.
• Use every invite available to you, every month.

Make sure you’re using the invite, by which I mean, you aren’t sending the event to people nor are you merely posting or sharing it! You click the Invite button, then look for people in the list that comes up; say, Paul O’Brien is there because we’re connected: click it and invite me (along with 200 of your relevant friends).

Yes, it’s manual. Yes, it takes time. But yes, it works really well. You want your event to feel like a personal invitation, not just a broadcast. Clicking that button is how you scale personal invitations without writing 400 messages.

Social Media Posts, Tagging, and Algorithms

Now, let’s talk about posting. A single post about your event is as effective as a billboard in the desert. Social networks throttle content on purpose. The average organic reach of a Facebook Page post? Around 5% of your followers. LinkedIn? Maybe 10%. That’s the system at work (they want you to pay for ads).

Let’s explore how do you fight back…

1. Post multiple times. Once a week leading up to the event, at minimum.
2. Tag people. Tag your speakers, mentors, and co-directors, in the post itself. Tag supporters or people you hope attend, in the comments. When you tag someone, the platform notifies them. They’re more likely to Like, Comment, or Share. That engagement boosts your reach.
3. Prime the pump. Fifteen minutes before posting, go Like and Comment on other people’s unrelated posts. This tells the algorithm that you’re active, which means your own post is more likely to get shown.
4. Rally the team. The first 15 minutes to two hours after your post are critical. That’s when platforms decide whether to show it to more people. Ask your staff, your founders, your mentors: Like it, comment on it, share it. Send them the link directly. If your entire company isn’t engaging with your own posts, you’re doing everything wrong.
5. Keep tagging. Every new comment is another chance to tag someone. More tags = more notifications = more attention.

Think of it like a startup pitch. If you can’t get your own team excited enough to amplify it, why would anyone else?

The Email Inbox is a Warzone

Let’s be blunt: email is broken. Half your recipients don’t open it because it landed in “Updates.” The other half never saw it because Gmail or Outlook assumed you were selling something and spamming (events get blocked more). Apple treats newsletters like they’re selling something and so if you’re lucky, 30% of your audience even sees what you sent.

That doesn’t mean stop sending emails; it means don’t expect them to carry the weight. Use email to reinforce the visibility you’ve created elsewhere, not as your only broadcast. And a decent idea? Use your emails and newsletters to grow your other channels: “RSVP here and Join us on LinkedIn.”

Multi-Channel is the Only Channel

Why does this matter? What does this mean? In Marketing, we have a word we now use to reference what the internet really did to the world: Omnichannel – which essentially means being everywhere. People don’t change their habits for you and so you want something know, you have to reach your audience where they’re found.

For example, I spend my time on LinkedIn, X, and the occasional Quora thread. You might only check TikTok and reddit. That founder you need in the room? She ignores social media but checks Meetup religiously while spending time on Facebook. And half of your community avoids email like it’s radioactive.

If you aren’t everywhere, you’re nowhere. The job is to reach them where they already are.

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Best Practices in Practice: Use them all

• Eventbrite: Still the gold standard for SEO and discoverability. Add keywords to your event title (“Houston Startup Pitch Night,” not just “Demo Day”).
• Meetup: Great for repeat engagement. Keep your local startup Meetup alive even if your main events are elsewhere. It’s a funnel and it grows if active.
• Luma: Up-and-coming, especially in the creative and Gen Z crowds. Easy RSVPs, clean design.
• Facebook Events: Essential for local, general community turnout. Works best if you invite manually and share in neighborhood or startup groups.
• LinkedIn Events: Key for professional audiences. They also let you invite your connections directly. Do that. It takes time but it works.

Plus, your Groups, your newsletter, your repeated social media posts, all constantly inviting people in and reiterating what’s coming soon. Have a website? A blog or a Substack or Medium? Please don’t tell me you’re ignoring that and that I need to make this article even longer to explain why you’re neglecting that audience and how get started (we’ll put together another article).

Stop Hoping, Start Distributing

If you’re not sick of copying, pasting, and sharing the details of an event, by the time you’re done, you haven’t done enough. Events don’t fill because you have a community. They fill because you chased people down where they already hang out.

And this matters more because those local supporters you’re seeking, say, sponsors, are going to favor your impact more when it’s evident that you draw the crowds (to your Pages, Groups, and Events)

It’s the same reason content creation done well, supports getting funded: you can’t assume one audience or one channel will carry you. Distribution is the job.

The difference is that with events, you don’t get a second chance; the day passes, the room is empty, and your entrepreneurs never connected.

Use every tool – Eventbrite, Meetup, Luma, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Groups, direct invites, and posts with tags – and make your hub the anchor. Otherwise, you’re not running an event; you’re running a private club, and no one knew they were invited to join.