Often times
parents will send their children to a camp because of a family
tradition, but generally enrollments come from word of mouth and camp
fairs at schools or in communities. Wise use of social media could
allow camps to use their fan page to reach further to friends of
friends. By being engaged on Facebook and showing up in news feeds
there is high chance that the camp's Facebook page will be visited
more. Or by posting regularly about enrollments, important dates or
pre-camp information and linking to the camp's website and inquiry
page, they may be able to increase the traffic to their website and
bring in new enrollments. It is much easier to stay connected to the
families that are already related to camp, so how can Facebook help
attract new families and campers
and not just maintain the existing community?
Facebook is
a “free” social media platform that provides users with a
database of their friends and easy way keep in touch and up to date
on the people in your life. What makes Facebook able to provide
people with this service without any fees is through the use of
advertising on every single Facebook page. Information about each
users clicking habits and interests are gathered and used to target
advertisements. Businesses can use Facebook to reach any of the 1
billion users, and Facebook will help you target the right ones
(Facebook, 2014). Targeted
ads can be really beneficial in this case to camps if families are
browsing and an ad for your camp comes up on Facebook. Especially if
they are on Facebook already and maybe looking for Facebook presence
which they may consider as boosting a camp's credibility. It
is easy for summer camps to utilize the same advertising techniques
to get their ads out to the right people and start to be seen.
Here
are the steps from the “How it works” section of Facebook's
advertising page:
1. Build a Facebook Page
- Add a unique cover photo and use your logo as a profile picture
- Create a post so when people visit your Page they see recent activity
- Make sure to like your Page and share it with your friends
2. Connect to your fans with ads
- Create multiple ads to help build an audience for your Page
- Use the targeting options to show your ads to only the people you want reach
- See which versions of your ads work best
3. Engage your fans with great content on your Page
- Add a new post to your Page at least once a week
- Pin your most important posts to the top of your Page
- Ask questions, share exclusive news and respond to people when they post or comment on your Page
4. Influence the friends of your fans
- Encourage check-ins, participation in events or create an offer to encourage more activity on your Page
- When people interact with the content on your Page, their friends are eligible to see the activity
- When people do things such as like, comment or check-in to your Page, you can promote those activities to their friends
Setting up
an advertisement is easy, however the key points to examine are from
section 3; “Engage your fans with great content on your Page”.
Adding posts to the camp page is essential to keeping your page
active and present on news feeds, because really the
first time they like your page is probably the last time they will
look at it unless you stay active. Posts should
include resources and links for questions like homesickness, getting
ready for camp, or other issues that parents would be concerned
about like water safety and camp food. The content on your page
should be compelling and interactive (Shenker, 2012). Besides
information it is also necessary to post pictures, stories, memories
or other content from the summer. One of the benefits of having
social media as a tool is being able to engage in two-way
communication. To use that two-way model to your advantage, our camp
page can post questions competitions to keep members active, also
boosting your presence in their extended friend group. Posts like
these should be short so campers or families don't need to read
through a lot to post a comment. An example post would be a photo
from an event at camp with a caption competition, or a “throw back
Thursday” post with a picture from the archives, or a quick “what
smell makes you think of camp?” would allow some fun and productive
engagement from your camp community online. Besides trying to reach
new target audiences, camps can use social media to keep their online
camp community up to date with practical things like information and
announcements. By keeping up with your camp community online you are
also creating a track
record on Facebook for parents to watch so they know what you do for
a few years prior to sending their kids to your camp. This means you
can also have your previous posts act as a resource for new families.
Developing Facebook ads and using your camp Facebook page can help
you track engagement and monitor what is working and what is not. By
linking to your camp website you keep traffic flowing and can keep an
eye on how many visitors come through your Facebook advertisements.
Even having a camp Blog attached to your website can benefit your
SEO, or search engine optimization, by making frequent posts to show
that your page is active and therefore more likely to appear at the
top of search engine lists.
