Electricurrent Blog

I imagine that there must be at least a few of out there that wonder about the value of creating a Facebook page for your organization given that you’ve already got a working, freshly updated website…and that’s a fair question. I’ve got two thoughts on the issue; one of which I’ll outline today and the other will come tomorrow.

First off, as a general rule of thumb, once you’ve identified your audience and the message you want to (or need to) communicate to them, it’s really important to consider where you’re going to connect with them best.

I just recently read of a specialty bakery in Toronto called Eini & Co. which focuses on cupcakes. Their media plan included putting advertisements in local newspapers as a broad-based method of getting their message out. But then they also included specialized strategies in their plan such as direct mailers to luxury hotels, posters near wedding and event venues and wedding boutiques and online ads at wedding websites. The result was that traffic to the company site increased 73% and sales were up 32% on the year.

Your ministry or non-profit website is in some ways like the newspaper advertisement in the above case study. It’s a no-brainer as part of your strategy simply because it is such a foundational element of the integrated marketing plan. But just because you’ve built your website, doesn’t mean they will come. That’s why it’s important to have an off-site strategy to reach out to those people who are more likely to get exposed to your brand and messaging in other places.

So for properties like Facebook, the question has to be asked, is my audience hanging out in this location and if they are, then you need to seriously consider being there as well so you give yourself a chance to be found. From there, you have a choice to engage them right then and there or you can drive them back to your website proper in order to continue the interactions there.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll deal with the other thought I’ve got on this topic.

I imagine that there must be at least a few of out there that wonder about the value of creating a Facebook page for your organization given that you’ve already got a working, freshly updated website…and that’s a fair question. I’ve got two thoughts on the issue; one of which I’ll outline today and the other will come tomorrow.

First off, as a general rule of thumb, once you’ve identified your audience and the message you want to (or need to) communicate to them, it’s really important to consider where you’re going to connect with them best.

I just recently read of a specialty bakery in Toronto called Eini & Co. which focuses on cupcakes. Their media plan included putting advertisements in local newspapers as a broad-based method of getting their message out. But then they also included specialized strategies in their plan such as direct mailers to luxury hotels, posters near wedding and event venues and wedding boutiques and online ads at wedding websites. The result was that traffic to the company site increased 73% and sales were up 32% on the year.

Your ministry or non-profit website is in some ways like the newspaper advertisement in the above case study. It’s a no-brainer as part of your strategy simply because it is such a foundational element of the integrated marketing plan. But just because you’ve built your website, doesn’t mean they will come. That’s why it’s important to have an off-site strategy to reach out to those people who are more likely to get exposed to your brand and messaging in other places.

So for properties like Facebook, the question has to be asked, is my audience hanging out in this location and if they are, then you need to seriously consider being there as well so you give yourself a chance to be found. From there, you have a choice to engage them right then and there or you can drive them back to your website proper in order to continue the interactions there.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll deal with the other thought I’ve got on this topic.