We
wanted to utilize “the world's most popular social media platform” to spread
the word about our idea challenge [“6 Ways to Promote your cause on Facebook”], our first step was to create a Facebook Page. The
first obstacle we came across was when I created a Facebook account to use for
marketing purposes in this project. When I tried to name the account “Disaster
Relief Solutions,” I received an error message, so I had to use my own name
because Facebook does not allow accounts without legitimate names.
Nevertheless, I was okay using my own name because it would not be connected to
my personal account. I was able to use this ‘project account’ to make a
Facebook Page for the project called “Disaster Relief Solutions.”
We posted the flyer image we created on the
Facebook Page to help us generate interest. According to our research, photos are
shared by Facebook users more often than any other post; therefore, the flyer
presented the opportunity to expand our audience [“Strategies”]. As a result, we had a few Facebook users join our Facebook
Event and “Like” our Facebook Page; we even had a Facebook message from a user
asking for more information. We were excited about someone reaching out to us;
however, we were also hesitant about his validity and legitimacy. This illustrates the difficulty of using a
platform like Facebook to connect with strangers. Our Bit.Ly link had over a
hundred clicks; however, the Bright Idea platform still had no posts from external
users.
Where did we go wrong?
The nature of the marketing ‘Blast’
led to problems. Our strategy was to post on all participant pool Facebook pages during the
initial challenge timeframe – three days.
This required posting frequent updates with the intention of generating interest.
If we could do it again…
Evidently, it would have been more effective
to spread out the timing of our posts. We should have been more cognizant of
the rules for posting on Facebook. An effective approach would be to post every
other day, maximum. Moreover, the best time to post is at 3pm on Wednesdays [“Strategies”]. We could have used this
information to schedule automatic posts via a program like Hootsuite. However,
this effort would not be effective if the timeframe isn’t long enough for
implementation.
Another improvement would be to contact the
individual Facebook Pages early to gain permission to post on their site. This
move would also help us get more “Likes” on our Facebook page. Gaining
followers on our Facebook Page was not easy because people generally only “Like” pages
they are familiar with. Therefore, implementing this strategy to gain more
“Likes” would increase our credibility. If given more time, we could have
teamed up with key government agencies through the social networks to have a
joint effort in reaching our target audience.
Finally, we would have focused on attracting
more attention to our site by creating a YouTube video with the potential of
going viral. According to our research, posting “intriguing or fun info that
relates to your type of business” is key in promoting via Facebook [“Strategies”]. Our group, for example, had
discussed creating a video with a compilation of disaster pictures and sad
songs to “pull on the heartstrings;” however, this idea was not feasible with
our timeline, so we decided to concentrate our efforts elsewhere.
In conclusion, we learned a lot in our
marketing efforts on Facebook, and if we do a similar project in the future we
will be able to develop a more thorough and more feasible plan.
Sources:
“Strategies: Using Facebook to promote your business
for free”
“6 Ways to Promote
your cause on Facebook”
“What You Cannot Do on Facebook”
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