community-wide vs. compartmentalizing: building relationships through facebook
DESCRIPTION
Most of your constituents are on Facebook and each of them is looking to engage with you in different ways at different times of their lives. To meet the varied needs of your constituents, your Facebook presence and communication strategy must take many forms. This session will explore the ways one College continuously reshapes its engagement strategy and will share the successes and challenges it has met in doing so.TRANSCRIPT
Gene BeginMarketing Director
Undergraduate SchoolBabson College
COMMUNITY-WIDE VS.
COMPARTMENTALIZING:
Building Relationships
Through Facebook
MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION:
Who Is Your Audience?
OR
Who Are Your Audiences?
…for each specific Facebook platform objective
COMMUNITY-WIDE
VS.
COMPARTMENTALIZING
COMMUNITY-WIDE
&
COMPARTMENTALIZING
COMMUNITY-WIDEthroughout a community
Facebook Example: Pages
Facebook Benefit: Broadcast messaging
COMPARTMENTALIZINGto separate into distinct parts or categories
Facebook Example: Groups
Facebook Benefit: Member-to-member collaboration
P.S. – Pages can still be used for compartmentalizing
COMMUNITY-WIDE
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts…
sometimes.
OUR ORIGINALFACEBOOK PAGE STRATEGY
RESULTS & FINDINGSSUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF FACEBOOK PAGES
• In driving traffic to our website, Facebook has been the 7th, 5th and 8th most popular referrer in past 3 years
• Most popular posts in terms of interactions (likes and comments)o U.S. News & World Report Rankingso Bloomberg BusinessWeek Rankingso Rankings Celebration Video
• Males 25 – 34 are largest audienceo 34% of fans/likes are 18 - 24 years of ageo 5% of fans/likes are 13 – 17 years of age
• Eliminated Admission and Registrar Pages due to lack of interactiono Combined resources with main Babson College pageo Compartmentalized those activities
COMPARTMENTALIZING
Different audiences need targeted influence
RESULTS & FINDINGSSUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF FACEBOOK GROUPS
• Incoming Class Dean’s Groups membership have grown o 20% of incoming class in ’07o 25% in ‘08o 31% in ‘09o 34% in ’10o Group video contests – successful one year, not the nexto If you don’t create it, others will beat you to it!
• Successful compartmentalized groups/pageso Babson Athleticso Babson Commencemento Babson Career Developmento Babson Parentso Different than just departments
GROUPS!
• Determine the audience, but be flexible if new
• Clearly define goals and objectives for EACH Facebook activity
• Test and track
• 50/50 rule for community-wide platforms
• Targeted influence for compartmentalizing platforms; think of life transition points
KEY TAKEAWAYS