Advertising Your School on Facebook

It’s amazing that there are over 600 million users worldwide on Facebook and it’s very likely that your school’s target population is using this social media site.

As the number one social media site, it is critical for schools to utilize Facebook as a way to target prospects. While you must do this by building your school’s page, it is also important to include Facebook ads as part of your overall marketing strategy.

Facebook allows you to target your ad to specific demographics including age, gender and location, as well as to target their interests and likes.

Yesterday I helped a school set up two Facebook ads. The first ad is targeted to friends of their school’s fans on Facebook. In less than 30 minutes we created an ad with a photo and teaser copy to encourage these friends to check out the school’s page. When the ad is clicked, the individual will be taken to the school’s Facebook page and will be encouraged to “like” the page.

The second ad targets the same group but is focused on advertising the school’s upcoming open house. Once again the ad was designed with a photo and teaser copy. In addition, we created a special landing page on their school’s website so that they would go directly to this page to discover more information on the open house when clicking on the ad.

Both of these ads are set up as PPC ads (pay-per-click). In other words, the only time you pay for these ads is when a prospect clicks on the ad. The cost for this click is based on your ad’s reach and focus. In the two examples above, the cost per click is about 75 cents each (Facebook will suggest a range for you ad). When an ad is created, you can establish a budget for the campaign that creates a ceiling for how much will be spent by your school–you might want to begin with a budget of around $200 for an ad and see what happens. 

These are two easy examples in which you can create an ad for your school on Facebook. You can learn more about Facebook advertising by clicking on the link at the bottom of your Facebook page. You can also begin by setting up your own ad and experimenting with your target demographics and potential reach.

So go ahead–Start using Facebook advertising today as a very cost-effective way to market your school online to your target demographics. You’ll find that it’s much more effective than that traditional print ad.