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Facebook is not just for kids anymore

Written by: Brad Kleinman

Article Overview: Have you heard of Facebook? Of course you have. It’s that website that your kids are obsessed with. They’re posting pictures and videos, letting each other know about where the next party is at, messaging each other incessantly and participating in other time wasting activities like virtually poking one another. How childish! Facebook is just for kids…or is it? Take a look at some key growth trends: • Facebook has over 175 Million users and is growing by more than 700K users a day • More than half of Facebook users are outside of college • The fastest growing demographic is those 30 years and older

Facebook is not just for kids anymore

Have you heard of Facebook?

Of course you have. It’s that website that your kids are obsessed with. They’re posting pictures and videos, letting each other know about where the next party is at, messaging each other incessantly and participating in other time wasting activities like virtually poking one another.

How childish!

Facebook is just for kids…or is it? Take a look at some key growth trends:
• Facebook has over 175 Million users and is growing by more than 700K users a day
• More than half of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 30 years and older

And it’s not just the reach of Facebook that is astounding, but user engagement is off the charts:
• More than 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 18 million users update their statuses at least once each day
• More than 4 million users become fans of Pages each day

More and more schools across the nation are beginning to jump on the bandwagon, as they realize that it is in their best interest to have a Facebook presence. Let’s explore some of the most powerful techniques you can employ to take advantage of Facebook to grow enrollment for your programs.

1. Get a profile…Join in the conversation.

My first recommendation for taking advantage of the Facebook platform is just to jump in and start your profile. Now you are able to connect (and stay connected) with business contacts you meet at your local chamber events, your open houses and programs, your online webinars, and everywhere else when the prospect asks “are you on Facebook?”

As you participate in Facebook and create events, post pictures from recent programs, communicate with contacts and more, people you are friends with see your actions (through the “Facebook News Feed”). This helps increase in the amount of touch points in which you are interacting with that contact. We all know that marketing for continuing education requires multiple touch points in order to entice a prospect to sign up for an upcoming program.

2. Place your events on Facebook.

The Facebook News Feed is incredibly powerful. One of the best ways to take advantage of it is through Facebook events because their algorithm places a lot of emphasis on pushing events to users if several of their friends RSVP for a specific event. For example, if you and a few others I am friends with RSVP for an upcoming conference, it’s highly likely for the event to creep into my feed… a few times over the course of time!

The same goes for pictures, which is great for event promoters: past participants’ friends can see my friends at the event I hosted, and potentially make them think they want to be in the IN crowd the next time I host an event. The entrepreneur center at Corporate College in Cleveland Ohio places events on Facebook (and LinkedIn) and it has been a great place to connect to potential new customers.

3. Communicating with business contacts couldn’t be easier

Once we are friends with a business contact on Facebook, it is very easy to message that person (via Facebook email or Facebook chat). Have an upcoming program on business planning you think the contact would be interested in? Send them an invite. Have a group of people in a certain market demographic that you want to focus on for market research? Use a Facebook Friend List to send the group of contacts a Facebook email to gauge their interest.

Facebook has created a robust system to very easily help you stay in touch with one individual, or a group of people. For example, when you post something to your profile, such as an event, a website link, a picture, or a simple status update, friends of yours will see those updates through the Facebook News Feed. Make sure to add the ‘Add to Facebook’ button to your articles and pages of your website that you want your users to be able to easily share with their Facebook friends.

4. Try Facebook advertisements

Facebook Ads do not have a large CTR or click-through-rate, which means they do not perform very well in terms of users clicking on the ads. However, your payment is based upon CPC or cost-per-click, which means that you only pay when someone actually clicks. Therefore, Facebook Ads are a great option when you are running more of a branding campaign for your organization.

One fantastic benefit of Facebook ads is the ability for you to drill down to make sure your ad is viewed by a very specific demographic (such as males between the ages of 26-32 in Anchorage that like Salmon). We have run campaigns that generated over 125K impressions (how many people viewed the ad), but we only had to pay $30 for the campaign because the click-through-rate was low.

5. Build your Facebook Page.

Facebook Pages are possibly the most attractive component of Facebook’s Business Services. You can create a ‘Page’ for your institution or your entrepreneurship department, and connect with people on Facebook just like a friend connects with another friend. Post events to your Facebook Page, update your status on projects your department is working on, post pictures and videos from previous events.

As more and more people become a ‘fan’ of your Page, chances increase that your brand will be able to propagate virally on the Facebook Platform. Another great benefit of Pages is the flexibility in customization by giving you the ability to build in custom graphics, forms, and more. Pages have many advantages over Groups because of flexibility and built-in traffic mechanisms.
With a price of $0 to get started on Facebook, and the platform growing at such an amazing rate, it’s time to develop your strategy for how you’ll take advantage. Jump in; the water’s getting warmer every day!

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Article Tags: bandwagon, best interest, business contacts, chamber events, continuing education, facebook, growth trends, local chamber, marketing, news feed, online webinars, open houses, presence, statuses, time wasting activities



Related Forum Posts
Re: Fill in the blank: The biggest thing I waste my time on is: - I used to spend hours playing Farmville on Facebook.... but not anymore:)
business and babies - Four kids and she wants more.... wow... Well, I guess if you're someone who likes kids...can handle kids...and run a business at the same time...more power to you!
Re: Kids know better than parents...? - [quote="OmnivoreInk":3dw72mlv]The problem is, what if kids have no passions? My nephew, now 10 years old, has been in Germany for 3 years. When kids are that young, it's the ideal time to learn a foreign language, they can grasp things quickly. He doesn't know a word. Didn't want to learn, and so his parents didn't insist that he do so. I asked him once if he studied for his tests in school. He didn't know what the word "studied" meant. Literally. He has no interest in learning. He spends four or five hours in school - whatever it is these days - comes home and spends the rest of the time and all weekend playing. When he does do his homework, it takes about 10 minutes and his mom sits right beside him while he does it. Yeah, I suppose 10 years old is pretty young to expect him to have ambition or know what he wants to be when he grows up - although I knew! - but his parents sure aren't helping him by instilling in him a desire to be the best he can be. Okay, that's a small sample size..but still....[/quote:3dw72mlv] When I was a kid, I was fortunate because my parents enrolled me in as many things as possible. For instance, I was given tennis, swimming, piano and skating lessons. Moreover, I would spend weekends at Chinese School to learn Cantonese and summers at art and even gymnastics camp (boy was that physically challenging!). We even had a basketball net installed on our garage door so that my brother and I could play. I think it's the parents' job to show their kids what's out there and then let the kids pick out their own passion or what interest that want to pursue further. If a parent tries to force their kid to like a certain sport or interest, the kid will typically reject it because it won't seem fun anymore.
Re: Social media question - Facebook is where I get all my traffic. Facebook is great, because you can create fan pages and your customers come to you. Twitter is good, but I just don't see the same results. I think Facebook is the most popular and it's easier for people to find what they're looking for.
Re: Facebook Advertising? - Facebook has more than 700 million active users and half of them log in on a daily basis. Through Facebook advertising, you can be sure to reach any particular segment. Conventional advertising models are expensive and difficult to reach a narrow target. Facebook advertising is one option that can get you results and target specific user groups. You may be the local beauty parlor, restaurant or a Fortune 500 organization, but eBizUniverse will show how to build your brand equity through Facebook advertising. Consider these ideal scenarios: You own a restaurant and wish to target those who are recently engaged to be married for their catering business. All you need to do is to find the women with the relationship status of “engaged” on Facebook and you have your desired segment with Facebook Ads. (See Sample Ads Below) There is a birthday special that your restaurant is offering and the Facebook Ads would be displayed only to those whose birthdays are in the offing. An event is being organized and you wish to target local college graduates, who are single and 25-35 years old. They are on Facebook and you can reach them with Facebook Ads.


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