How to launch a Facebook campaign to help youths at school?
February 8, 2012 3:07 AM   Subscribe

I need ideas for a social media campaign to target young people who lack motivation and aren't doing well in school. Are there any Facebook campaigns that I draw inspiration from?

I work in a non-profit and we gathered some pretty damning statistics last year of kids (between 16 and 19) not doing well in school coz they lack interest and are mixing with bad company.

We need to reach out to these kids and help them (though they don't feel they need it!) so they can have a chance in life. We've got our TV and radio spots and all, but we feel that Facebook is the ideal platform to reach out and engage them.

Problem is, we're trying to 'convert' a demographic that doesn't wanna be converted. We're not seen as a 'hip' organization and they certainly don't wanna be associated with us.

We have quite a fair bit of money to spend and we have close ties with the media and our local TV stars are available to us, so it's not entirely hopeless. But we're seriously lacking ideas on how we can use Facebook to reach out to these kids in a way that's lasting.

I'm looking for examples of other Facebook campaigns around an 'unsexy' matter that was done well and was hugely successful.

Help? And thanks in advance!
posted by mordecai to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
I think the general rule of thumb is that the more hip and cool you try to make it, the more dated it looks, more quickly.

The biggest challenge you face is that your organization is irrelevant to these kids on whom you have "damning statistics".

You're going to need to do more than a pr campaign to change that. If you don't do something different when they walk in the door, like actually "be hip", you're wasting your time on facebook.
posted by vitabellosi at 3:23 AM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]


Check out Marlon Parker
posted by parmanparman at 7:53 AM on February 8, 2012


Nonprofits without enormous media departments struggle to mobilize supporters and donors on facebook, but there is not a lot of data available on mobilizing clients or potential clients on facebook. If you are relatively facebook-savvy yourself and aren't finding anything, it's because it's not out there in any useful form.

Reaching out to teenagers via facebook, which they see as their territory, is going to turn them off to your organization. It's just as effective as a bunch of your staff showing up to their basketball court and trying to explain the mission and why it's good for them. It's their space, don't invade it. Doing so shows just how out of touch you are.

The only viable methods I know of for outreach into struggling youth populations are saturation and availability. That is, saturate the spaces they are in with messaging that is relevant and appealing to them, and let them find it themselves. This can mean signs in bus shelters and on public transportation, radio PSAs on a station they're already listening to, and perhaps facebook ads. But your messaging has to be appealing; if they already don't want to be associated with you because you're uncool, it doesn't matter how you advertise, unless you're outright lying about who you are to get teens in the door.

But really, you say it yourself: you are trying to get teens to be associated with an organization that they don't want to be a part of. What gets the teens you actually serve in your door, if they don't walk in of their own volition? Examine those avenues and launch a campaign targeting those people, not the teens. That could be parents, teachers, churches, or community leaders. But frankly, you're barking up the wrong tree if you think you can get teens to come to you via facebook.
posted by juniperesque at 9:45 AM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]


What juniperesque said, plus: Your TV and radio should all tie in with whatever you do on Facebook.
posted by feistycakes at 12:13 PM on February 8, 2012


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