Online Presence

20 www.ccca.org October/November 2017®

With the growth of social media,

advertisers and organizations have quickly

realized the importance of utilizing social

marketing as a tool to promote, to gain

traction and to build awareness. But what

does it take to generate a strong presence

in a creative social campaign? �

EXPERT TIPS ON MARKETINGWITH SOCIAL MEDIA

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GETTINGSOCIALAT CAMP

by Jenna Frank

®October/November 2017 www.ccca.org 21 ®

WHILE IT MAY SEEM LIKE

SOCIAL MEDIA IS A BIT OF

A FREE-FOR-ALL, THERE

ARE KEY STRATEGIES THAT

SHOULD BE EXAMINED AND

EXPLORED FOR MAXIMUM

EFFECTIVENESS AND REACH.

When it comes to digital marketing,there are a lot of elements to take intoconsideration to craft a campaign thatwill be most effective. Aesthetics, toneand timing all play a factor, and eachsocial platform has different strengthsand weaknesses that can be examinedand used to reach key audiences. Whileit may seem like social media is a bit of afree-for-all, there are key strategies thatshould be reviewed and explored formaximum effectiveness and reach.

Know Your AudienceTo get the strongest engagement out ofyour digital audience, it’s important tounderstand the voice that will resonatewith whom you’re speaking. A teendemographic will respond differentlythan a young (K-5) or college-age audience, and certainly, if you’re target-ing parents of campers you’ll want toconsider what is most appealing to them.

With graphics, whether static or video, it is impor-tant to come up with a design that is eye-catching to the age group you’re reaching. For example, foryounger campers and parents, a series of activitygraphics or videos might work well. While for a teen using social media without parental supervision,trending topics, calls to action, and attention-grabbing content may work better (e.g.: memes, reaction GIFs, etc.). Your social campaign is a perfectplace to test new looks and ideas, as you get almostimmediate results from your users about what isworking and what is not.

Measure and AdjustEach social platform provides insights into your socialperformance when registered as a page or business.The insights page can help you determine your mostengaged audience, the highest traffic times, and whattypes of posts are garnering the highest engagementand reach. The ideal posting time would be at thestart of your high traffic window. Posting frequency is also something to take into consideration. Pagesthat are rarely updated will decline in followers and

Photos co

urtesy of Camp Hebron

October/November 2017 www.ccca.org 23 ®

engagement. On the flip side, over-posting or over-saturating will alsogenerally result in a loss of followers.

Social media is always shifting andchanging. It’s important to stay on top of current trends and platform-specificupdates that can be used by your camp orconference center. For example, in recentyears we’ve seen a substantial shift invideo engagement vs. static images. Oncevideo assets became easily accessible, wesaw many social media pages leveragethese to promote their brand or product.For your camp, remember to keep videosrelatively short (a minute or less) whenpossible to keep viewers engaged longer.Videos that are front-loaded with eye-catching content will also perform better.As you develop your creative assets, focus on quality. Social media feeds are saturated with so much content.Beautiful, creative, clever, fetching con-tent will yield higher results than poorlyexecuted creative. (Learn more aboutvideo marketing on page 30.)

Investing in a Social StrategyWhen it comes to putting any sort ofmoney behind an asset, you want totake into consideration your reach andengagement on current posts. Take aninventory of the posts on your camp’spage and see what has garnered strongengagement and then invest financiallyin that piece or create another piecewith similar messaging and tone. Boost-ing a post can be money well spent and may drastically increase yourdemographic reach and follower count.

If you choose to put money behindsomething and realize that it isn’tperforming well, don’t hesitate to pull the boosted post and put it behindanother piece. Often, the way a paid postperforms within the first 24 hours is a �

EXTRA INFO

HIGHEST PERFORMINGPOSTS BY PLATFORMUnderstanding what works best where

Facebook tends to see the highest performancewith video assets. You can’t post a GIF on Face-book without going through an outside platformsuch as Giphy. However, this is likely to change

with the introduction of organic GIFs to Facebook. At thiscurrent time though, mp4s see the best performance, andgenerally, a video that is squared (1:1) or vertical (9:16) willoutperform a landscape (16:9) video. Stay up on changes on Facebook through their Help section.

On Instagram, the opposite is true. Static imagesstill tend to outperform video on this platform.Instagram started out as a place to share staticimages, and that audience has remained faithful

in its engagement. While we see a growth in video perform-ance, the platform still lends itself to strong static graphicperformance. Instagram Stories, a newer endeavor, is consis-tently resulting in more views and engagement per videothan Snapchat.

Snapchat provides a compelling platform. To gainleverage here, paid media or an engaging SnapStory seems to work best. It’s difficult to trackinsights on Snapchat, so you are reliant on viewer-

ship. Stories should be fun and entertaining and should takeadvantage of stickers, geo-tags and filters where relevant.You can also create your own geo-tag for a relatively lowcost (generally $5 – $18 depending on location, run time,etc.). This is an excellent way to create a unique tag for yourcampers to use.

Twitter is a unique space for social marketing,especially if you’re targeting parents or businessand ministry leaders. The popularity of hashtagsand trends on Twitter gives your camp the ability

to create a viral marketing campaign. If you are in a positionto put advertising dollars behind creative, Twitter tends tosee a high performance here. For example, if your audienceis primarily adult-focused and you can jump on a trendingtopic on Twitter with a graphic that can tie into the topic aswell as camp, this would be a great time to put a bit ofmoney behind your assets.

—Jenna Frank

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24 www.ccca.org October/November 2017®

strong indicator of how it will perform overall. It canalso give you a deeper read on the type of content yourusers want to see and what isn’t working. Sometimesyou can think that a campaign should be moving inone direction and after a few paid posts realize that you need to shift directions slightly.

Create a social media calendar that maps out whichaudiences your camp wants to target during which seasons. Then watch what is getting the most attentionand lean into that concept and messaging. For instance,think about targeting parents of campers during the fallthrough spring when registration opens for summercamp. Tweak your targeting to teens and campers dur-ing the late spring through late summer, highlightingthe experiences campers are having. You won’t lose theparents during this season, but you will likely pick upsome campers as followers.

Should You Share Content?Organically posting any video asset or other creative toyour page will almost always outperform a share fromanother page. That being said, shares are an excellent

way to get content in front of new eyes,but sharing it to your page will not gainas much engagement as an organic post.

The audience is always growing andadapting and introducing new elements.Social platforms are ever evolving, andbeing willing to take calculated risks can yield great results for your camp orconference center. You’ll find that socialmedia is the most flexible of your mar-keting strategies allowing you to read inreal-time how you’re doing, modify yourapproach, and see very quickly if it wassuccessful. Take advantage of this byposting about activities happening rightnow at camp. Enlist followers to vote for,support and share content around anevent at camp tonight. Share what God isdoing today on your property. That’s thebeauty of the medium — it’s social andimmediate: The perfect combination fora vibrant ministry like camp. l

Snapchat remains a bit of an enigma in the social mediaworld. Over 60 percent of users with smartphones haveSnapchat, and the average ad receives up to a millionviews per day. The millennial demographic accounts forapproximately 70 percent of Snapchat users. This indi-cates that young people still find this platform of social

media relevant,and therefore, itshould continuebeing utilized.

Snap has gonethrough a majorrebranding overthe last fewyears. While thedisappearing

photos and videos it was originally known for are still aprimary feature, the platform was the first to introduceStories, where one can document their day throughimages that remain for 24 hours. We have seen that thiscan be a great tool for camps and businesses to show-case events, people, etc. more casually. Many things canbe leveraged here: 10-second trivia games, interviews orfun announcements with Snap filters.

A bigger benefit would be a Snap geo-filter that caneasily be created and purchased for a relatively low costdepending on the location and run time. This filter wouldgive added recognition of your camp and its activities.Snap users enjoy taking advantage of geo-filters on theirsnaps, as it allows their followers to identify where theyare and what they’re doing.

Snapchat is a trickier platform than others as its functionsare multifaceted, and insights are harder to access.However, because it is a bit more informal, it allows youto use full creativity and think outside the box in engagingyour audience. It’s a fun way to make a more personalconnection with users.

—Jenna Frank

Jenna Frank works

as a digital

manager for film and television in

Los Angeles, California. She has over

10 years of ministry experience as a

creative producer, providing a faith-

based context for her role. She focuses

on social campaigns for movies from

the creative stage to implementation

to help clients grow their social media

platforms by creating engaging content.

EXTRA INFO

WHAT IS SNAPCHAT?Explaining this unique social media platform

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