This document summarizes the results of several social media advertising campaigns run by Edweek Events to promote nominations for an award and registrations for an event. A first Facebook ad campaign was successful in generating nominations with a "low-lift" ask tailored to the right audience. However, a second Facebook campaign and Twitter campaign to increase event registrations failed due to taking on a "heavy-lift" task, targeting the wrong audiences, issues with timing, support and content. The key lessons are to test campaigns, know your audience and product, have a clear plan, and understand the differences between platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Future campaigns should apply these lessons.

2. 1. Successful Facebook Campaign—
seeing what works
2. Failed Facebook Campaign—
demonstrating what doesn’t work
3. Twitter Campaign– assessing your
brand’s readiness
4. Lessons Learned
5. Conclusions and
Recommendations
Presentation Details

4. • More outreach than your page
• More targeted outreach
• Growing your brand
• Facebook algorithms work against
you
Why Do You Need Ads?

5. Leaders To Learn From
• Generate nominations for award
• Generate registrations for the
conference

6. • Garner nominations
• Increase impressions
• Increase followers
• Raise brand awareness
Goals

7. • Ad Type: Clicks to Website
• Flight: July 6— August 1
• Budget: $20 daily
• Audience:
• US
• Age 25—64
• All Gender
• Specific Interests to hone search
• Education, Teacher, School, Board of
Education, School district, Primary
school, Middle School, High School,
Primary Education, Secondary
Education, Education Technology, K-12
Education
Facebook Ad Campaign

8. Facebook Ad Campaign

9. • Estimated daily reach:
1,500-4,000
• CPM (cost per 1,000
impressions): approx. $5
• Potential reach in 46 days:
60,000 people
Expected Results

10. • 1-3 hours research
• 10 minutes set-up
• Weekly check-in
• 2 hours post-analysis
Work Involved

11. Results

12. Why it worked
• “Low-lift” ask
• Tailored to the right audience
• People who know who to
nominate
• Well-timed
• Engaging Photo

13. Second Ad Campaign
• Increase registrations for the live event
• Thought we had the keys to success
• Had a better idea of our audience

14. Goals
• To increase registration numbers
• To increase impressions and followers
• To increase brand and event
awareness

15. Goals
Registration Campaign:
Goals:
• Generate paid
registrations for an
event
Success Means:
• Just a handful of
registrations that garner
thousands of dollars in
revenue
• Raised brand/event
awareness
• Raised “likes” to
Edweek Events’ page
• Raised post
engagement
Nominations Campaign:
Goals:
• Generate free
nominations for an
award
Success Means:
• Over 400 nominations
by August 1
• Raised brand
awareness
• Raised “likes” to
Edweek Events’ page
• Raised post
engagement

16. The Event Registration Ad
Honing Criteria:
• Ad Type: “Event
Responses”
• Audience: Same
as Nominations
Ad
• Running Time:
August 6-August
31
• Budget: $16/day
for 25 days
Expected Results:
• Estimated daily
reach: 2,100-
5,600 people
• Cost per click:
approximately
$0.50
• Potential Reach:
61,000 people

18. Results
• Cancelled after only 1 week
• Spent $223.25
• Reached 18,175
• 16 event responses
• 158 event clicks
• Resulted in no viable
registrations

19. • “Heavy-lift ask”
• Audience was ill-fit
• Time frame
• Artwork Department
• Changes in Personnel
Why It Didn’t Work

20. • Original launch: December 2015
• Budget: $268
• Choice between maximum daily
budget and total campaign
• Goal: Website clicks to registration
page
Twitter Campaign

21. • Did not receive support from
• Audience
• Art department
• Own staff
• Timing and content issues
Issues

22. • Create plan based on a successful
Facebook campaign
• Attempted implementation too early
• Audience on Twitter
• Ticket price
When to Abort Mission

23. • “There’s an ‘APP’ for that!”
• Know your audience
• Know your product
• Know your plan
• Create a plan and be sure to
execute
• Schedule in advance
• Facebook is very different from
Twitter
Takeaways

24. Conclusion
• Remember
• Audience
• Product
• Plan
• “Heavy-lift” vs. “low-lift”
task
• Twitter and Facebook
are very different
• Some will hit, some will
miss, but it’s worth the
risk

25. Questions?
Matthew Cibellis
@mcibellis
mcibellis@epe.org
(301) 280-3191