TBOX Founder Christopher Festa Guest Lectures for DePaul Marketing Class

Feb. 28, 2013 - PRLog -- Christopher Festa, Owner and Founder of Festa Parties, a Chicago-based event planning company known for its festive events including TBOX, The Twelve Bars of Xmas in Wrigleyville, is motivating the young minds of DePaul students, after giving a lecture on Wednesday, February 13th in a Social Media Marketing Class.  Festa Parties has been planning and organizing great Chicago party events since its first TBOX way back in 1996.

DePaul University Professor Steve Koernig invited Festa to give a one hour talk to his downtown campus class of 25 in order to show them a real life success story on the power of great marketing.  Koernig stated, “I asked Chris to speak in my class because I consider his use of Facebook to build his business nothing short of extraordinary. I have seen what Chris has been able to accomplish with his companies, and I felt that he could inspire my students not only as a Facebook expert, but also as an entrepreneur.”  

Festa spoke in detail and answered questions about how he built his business in both the early days of the internet, the pre-social media days, and in today’s current environment of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media tools.  Mikaela Odell, a DePaul student that participated in the lecture, mentions that she, “got inspired by Christopher because he told me and my class about how he had been working an ordinary job and then he decided to start his own business. He started a business based on something he loved and cared about.”  Odell later added, “He showed us that working with something that you love is possible. He showed us that an hobby can be turned into a business and that is really inspiring.”

Christopher Festa also shared his knowledge of building a business and his effective marketing strategy.  He has long since used Facebook and other social media outlets to promote his events, as evident by the growing popularity of these festivities, and encourages other business owners to do the same. One of the key points Festa emphasized was the need to engage customers online in a fun, creative, personal way. “I must admit, I’m as hooked on Facebook as anyone,” Festa said, “and when I post messages to our Festa Parties Facebook Page, I try to mix information with fun, using a lot of fun illustrations, personalized memes, pop culture references, and countdowns to our next big event. Since I’m so personally passionate about the subject matter, it makes it a labor of love to keep our customers continually informed, excited, and ready for the next big adventure.”  

Festa went on to describe how TBOX grew from under 60 people in 1996 to well over 20,000 in 2012, and how Festa Parties has used techniques including fangating, glogs, contests, and heavy photo tagging to increase their reach across Facebook.  This advice answered several questions DePaul undergraduate student, Lili He, has had in regards to improving her career, “Frequently as a marketer, we have to face the decision to choose the right social network tool between Twitter, Pinterest or Facebook. Myself as a marketing undergrad at DePaul University, I have often thought which social network tool is the best for business. And thanks to the lecture, I learned if there’s only one social network tool for business, Facebook is all you need.”  However, Festa also pointed out, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.  Facebook marketing is a blessing, but with the way they continually change policies and functionality, and the way they are now monetizing the promotion of posts, it’s not a slam dunk to reach your entire audience with everything you want to get out to them.”

After the lecture, Festa commented, “It was great to share experience and knowledge with the younger generation interested in entrepreneurship.”  Koernig added, “The major lesson Chris taught my students was one he might not expect: He stressed that they should pursue their interests and that starting a business is not as difficult as they might think. A large number of students approached me after his talk and said that he served as an inspiration to them. Before Chris spoke to my class, about a third of the class had told me that they knew social media was important, but they thought that it could only be used by the large, corporate, ‘sexy’ companies. Chris demonstrated that the twin engines of hard work and passion for an idea, propelled by social media, were more than sufficient to build a successful organization from the ground up.”  DePaul student, Casey Moroney, felt the strength behind Festa’s words.  “What resonated most with me is that he told his story of how he started with just a small group of people doing something for fun and turned it into a successful business that is now the biggest biggest bar crawl in the city,” Moroney stated.  “Definitely one of the most inspiring lectures I've heard during my time at DePaul!”

Festa Parties is looking forward to continuing producing the lively and popular events like TBOX, BeadQuest, and Cover Your Bases and contribute extensively to the local charities and community organizations.