Facebook’s edgerank (or whatever they actually call it) admittedly helps keep newfeeds from becoming cluttered with uninteresting posts. Facebook, ever so helpful, gives the option to “boost” a post for a price. (Multiple price options actually.) But should HigherEd social media marketers invest in doing so? Out of curiosity I tried and here are my takeaways.

Why?

• I’m curious.
• Needed a baseline in order to request official support of future add purchases from supervisor (who in turn needs to request from the Dean). Thus, need numbers to demonstrate effectiveness (or not)
• The next year we are making a larger push to spread the word that we are Oregon’s First accredited school of public health.
• Lots of audiences identified
• Luckily just a few (sorta) marketing messages we are trying to make.

Why boost this post?

• It was generic-ish (which may have been a bad idea)
• This post had to do with our collaborative nature not only within the college but across campus. Also innovation of holding a class for grad students on topic of science communication.

Audience

• This post was a good generic-ish post about Oregon State as a whole that I felt would resonate with potential grad students – showing how we are a cool place for them to attend.
• Also thought was good to post as example to other schools… to show we are doing cool things… which would hopefully entice them to see what other cool things we are doing… or give impression that all the things we do are cool. (it’s cognitive science… look it up)

Targeted audience (and why)

• Who live in the United States
• age exactly 19 and older
• Who like #Public health, #Health promotion, #Global health, #Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, #Health system, #Boston University School of Public Health, #Harvard School of Public Health or #International health
• Who are not already connected to College of Public Health & Human Sciences
• on News Feed on desktop computers and mobile devices

Biggest cool thing?

• I can target by people based on their interest in some of the big-time other schools of public health (cool!)
• Eventually might be able to target people interested in our “rival” schools in oregon

How did I pay for it?

soooo… yeah, about that.

• Least amount I could spend was $15. next allowable amount was $40. I went with $15 Luckily Santa left a little cash in my stocking. I would have spent more if the ad was tailored more specifically as an ad.
• I have facebook tied to my personal PayPal account.
• My guess is that we would have to use the college’s credit card to purchase ads. That is a pain in ass-ish process that involves contacting our facilities manager. (there are worse things… but it’s really sort of prohibitive… but I guess that’s the point)
• You’ll have to work out your own system with your dept.

I did it when?

• Okay, so maybe not the best day. 24 hours from 3pm new years eve to 3pm new years day.
• On one hand – high likelihood of people checking their feeds for new years photos/posts
• On other hand – people not interested in clicking through to a sponsored post when they have party photos to laugh at.

So how did it do?

TL;DR – I was surprised by overall numbers of views, but engagement was low. I want to do again with better tailored post/add.

• Probably better reach and inbound traffic to story from already created networks, both in person and SM based – and through fans of #scicomm
• Also, FB insights sorta sucks and is awesome at the same time.
• !!! oh.. and good thing. No negative feedback

Compare

Compare to a recent post that was a link to an Oregonian article featuring our Prof. Brad Cardinal

Compare to story about a student

So, what did happen?

Lots of people across the country “saw” the post

So, what didn’t happen?

Very little engagement. Only 24 clicks through to original story on our synergies wordpress page.

What could be better?

• Timing (new years day? really?) – see above somewhere
• Write post tailored as an actual promoted post.
• When I originally posted the link I wrote it thinking of current fans. Really should have optimized title along lines of “see how OSU is creating better scientist” or something like that… but better and shorter
• Original post needed better “ad speak” title too

Better photo.

• That was totally not a catchy photo. (needed kittens or something)

Video?

• If video produces more engagement? Then promoted posts should be video.

Should I make more targeted posts?

• For instance, if “biostatistics” is something I can target on FB and is a position we need more grad students in, should I promote any stories we have about our biostat program? Should I promote specifically our biostat program page?
• Should I “boost” any story we have involving our faculty experts in a field (especially health policy) with a target audience of anyone interested in health care in oregon? or that are fans of specific legislators?
• This could potentially cover our marketing goal of larger awareness in oregon of how our college positively affects Oregon health systems.

More money?

• Facebook will let you spend all the money you let them. What if put larger funds?

International?

• What if we want more international students from India or China/Taiwan? Target them?
• Just because this would impress the Dean, would it be worth it? How to measure beyond engagement to real world increase in applications and high quality applicants (whatever that means)

What did I miss?

any questions I need to address in the blog post version of this doc?

• how do you feel about posts that have a tag stating it is promoted?
  • what messages are a turnoff?
  • more cat photos 🙂
• what about this vs. posting similar post multiple times or going to the archives to post again.

Anything else?

Let me know in the comment section.