Facebook marketing for social media newbie organization
February 14, 2012 10:53 AM   Subscribe

How can a small nonprofit best publicize its upcoming national conference on Facebook?

I am active in a small nonprofit patient support organization with a national following/audience. Its conferences draw about 500 people.

The organization has about a thousand "likes" on Facebook. There are a few dozen people who post sporadically on the organization's wall, and the organization's staff does some work, too.

Almost all of the conference attendees will travel to attend the conference (some internationally). Some attendees are very connected, others not-so-much.

How should the organization publicize the upcoming conference on Facebook, and how can/should that best relate to the organization's (relatively static) website? Registrations are open now but the conference isn't for several months.

As I see it the goals are: (1) get information about the conference to potential attendees; (2) build buzz and excitement in attending the conference for those who have committed to attend; (3) cause others in the target audience to attend because of the added buzz and excitement and (4) gain attention or even donations from non-attendees. I am not sure how to best accomplish these goals, however.

Examples of similarly situated, highly effective social media campaigns would be great, too.
posted by QuantumMeruit to Computers & Internet (1 answer total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, I'd make sure the website had all the registration information now, and I'd start reminding people on Facebook regularly. The Facebook page owner should create an event and invite people to it who are known (not all people liking the page are going to be, though). Again, post this as part of the regular reminders. Parcel out the conference highlights and any news in small bits so you can post more often. Suggest sharing the org's page or the event so more people will learn about it. Hold campaigns to raise the like counts to the next level, e.g. "We're at just 1175! Only 25 more people to 1200!" For some reason these work. Ask questions to the page: "Are you interested in coming? Tell us why!" "What did you get out of last year's conference?" "Do you have a favorite story from the XYZ conference?" That sort of thing.

I'd also consider a Google Plus page (as with FB, now you can create these -- a page, not a profile, but you need a base profile to hang it off of) for the org, perhaps updated less aggressively, depending on audience that might be there. If there is anything like a photo archive you can use, post those, perhaps to FB, perhaps to a Tumblr. If there are websites or products that are germane, consider Pinterest as yet another tool.

Basically, it's about engagement.
posted by dhartung at 12:20 PM on February 14, 2012 [2 favorites]


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