Facebook advertising

[Scott]

I think this is the first time I've seen a paid-for advert on Facebook for an orienteering event. it would be interesting to know what sort of response they get.

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This might be worth a try for urban races or park race series - you can target Facebook users with your adverts according to their (self-declared) interests and location, so you could have (for example) an advert targeted at people interested in "running" or "jogging" within 20miles of your town/city. Adverts are priced according to the likely size of their target market, so that could actually be quite affordable.

[SeanC]

Interesting idea. How much do you think it would it cost to target say 100,000 people whos interests were running or outdoors?

Similar concept to google advertising where your link can appear for certain searches. I guess as google, facebook will give statistics on how many people clicked the advert, and the advertising can therefore be made more effective over time?

[andypat]

It does sound like a good idea. It would be interesting to see how well the targetting works. I dont recall ever getting something on facebook other than untargetted spam though.

[Scott]

You pay each time somebody clicks on your advert, and you can set a maximum daily budget - once you reach your cap for the day it simply stops showing your advert. You can have a play with creating your own and messing around with the targeting settings here, and help/FAQ is here.

An advert targeted at everybody in the UK who like "outdoors" or "running" with no other filters would have an estimated reach of up to "439,760", apparently, and cost around 76p per click. Obviously you would probably want to be a bit more targeted than that, unless BOF fancy sponsoring a bit nationwide "try orienteering" campaign...

[SeanC]

So long as the advert can be clicked by genuine newcomers and not be accidental clicks or existing orienteers this could be cost effective at a local level. If an advert was specific to deter those who wouldn't be available eg "try orienteering at Smogmouth Park Jan 11th", then £100 spend = 130 clicks, assuming 10% turn up on the day, 13 newcomers is a nice number to handle at a local event, and if they generate an average of £3 each in income after other costs then the advertising cost is just over £60. This seems quite sustainable and affordable. Will try this next year.

[NFKleanne]

I just organised my first event, and created an event to advertsise it on facebook. I sent it to my friends, as well as local running/ rambling groups, via the messaging system. All 4 of my step children sent it to there friends and we had several people who found out about the event through the event on facebook. And it was free!!! Last year at a similar event we had 4 people turn up, this year we had 35 new people and 4 existing orienteers!

[SeanC]

Great stuff. That sounds like a better plan. I must admit I am not a facebook user and have avoided it so far. Clubs are always saying to members to "tell your friends" - this seems the ideal way. I guess it's limited to those connected to the club members somehow, but if you keep getting new members/participants. Time to join facebook I guess.....

[SeanC]

I registered with facebook and am investigating. One interesting thing about facebook advertising given the discussion in the other threads is that you can apparently target the advertising to specific age groups.

What do other clubs do with facebook? Any other stories on how to best use facebook for event promotion?

[Scott]

I set up a facebook "fan page" for the London Park Race series at http://www.facebook.com/parkrace. I didn't actually do it until partway through the series, and probably didn't promote it as heavily as I could have done, but now it's established with a reasonable number of fans I'm hoping to be able to push it next year.