“Hey, do you know Tom?”

“Tom? Maybe. I’m not that great with names, but maybe if I saw a face… Let me pull him up on Facebook?”

“Alright.”

“Oh wow, yeah! Look at this, we have all of these mutual friends and it looks like he was having a great time at Governor’s Ball this past weekend! I was there too. Check this out – he won some game with PayPal and got this snazzy prize!”

“PayPal?”

“Yeah, you haven’t heard? They had an awesome footprint set up! Actually here, check out these photos I uploaded with them from last weekend…”

And so the conversation goes. In today’s world if you’re not connected 24/7, you’re almost at a loss. You want to keep your curious friends tuned into what’s going on in your life and what cool things you’ve been up to. Whether people want to scroll and look at funny cat videos that their friends posted or catch up on what their friends think about a certain issue by looking at their likes, Facebook is a social media outlet for 1.55 billion people worldwide.

Brands have already learned to take advantage of this massive exposure opportunity, but may not yet have realized the power that experiential marketing in specific has with Facebook. The average American spends around 40 minutes on Facebook daily compared to 21 minutes on Instagram and 17 minutes on Twitter, which leaves a relatively large window for marketers to grab these consumers’ attentions.

Is it really worth to spend time trying to gain consumers on Facebook though? What can a “like” really do for a brand? For starters, according to IPSOS, 38% of people who have liked a brand on Facebook recommended it to friends. But outside of this, and something that’s a little harder to measure is the exposure that a Facebook linked experiential marketing campaign generates.

For small brands, it’s a great way to get your name out there. One consumer who comes to the event and uploads content to Facebook is giving you a free endorsement. His friends that don’t know the brand will be intrigued and will follow the posts to the brand website and explore from there.

For well-established brands, it’s an amazing way to remind consumers of what your brand is about. Whether your brand is one that strives to be fun and rebellious or luxurious and exclusive, pictures of events that convey these message will remind some consumers why they already liked your brand and attract others to an aspect that they may not have been entirely exposed to.

Now it’s time to think about how effective these suggestions are. If you’re scrolling through your news feed and you see that one of your friends posted content about a brand or recommended that brand, would you be at least a little intrigued? According to a study conducted by Zephoria, 80% of consumers said they were more likely to try something that was recommended by a friend on social media.

This all great, but how can experiential marketers capitalize on the power of Facebook? It’s really simple. As with Instagram, experiential marketers can simply allow consumers to upload photos of the event by prompting them with a hash tag, they can take consumer pictures themselves and facilitate the uploading process, and they can offer prizes in exchange for consumer generated content to their pages.

But Facebook is more powerful than just that. Brands can choose to include call to action buttons (CTA) on consumer uploads if the brand is posting for consumers themselves with approval. These CTA buttons, which boost the campaign click-through rate by 2.85 times, are a powerful tool that experiential marketers can easily include their campaign.

Not to mention that Facebook is a fit for almost every brand. It has such a varied user base that brands targeting consumers in high-end fashion and brands targeting consumers who love power tools both have a market on Facebook. Experiential marketing through Facebook facilitates this process because the consumers who are willing to share a certain brand on social media will most likely have a network that has similar interests, so the social media market is almost naturally targeting if the event is well targeted.

Everyone knows that social media is a critical aspect of any marketing campaign. Don’t let your brand fall behind, but instead launch it forward by being active with Facebook strategies. Implementing an experiential marketing campaign that allows your brand to increase exposure by delivering a positive virtual experience and the right message can make all of the difference.