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?
1.
Build a Facebook Page
References
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:
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
(www.facebook.com/advertising/how-it-works)
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 (Selke, 2012). 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.
References
Facebook. (2014). Advertise on Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/advertising/
Selke, J. H. (2012, November). Social marketing: Where should you start?. Retrieved from http://www.acacamps.org/campmag/1111/social-marketing
Shenker, N. (2012, September). The 24/7/365 camp community: Sitting around the online campfire. Retrieved from http://www.acacamps.org/campmag/1209/24-7-365-camp-community
