The Student Affairs Blog

How to Create a Facebook Flyer

Facebook made it incredibly simple to create targeted ads based on location, sex, age, keywords, political view, relationship status, education status, and workplace. These target ads, called flyers, are a great and cheap way to market your events. If you've never tired it, here's a quick tutorial to get your started:

Step 1: Log into your Facebook account

 

 

Step 2: Scroll to the bottom of your profile page and click on "advertisers"

 

 

Step 3: Click on "Order Facebook Flyers"

 

 

Step 4: Click on "Flyers Pro"

Flyers Basic allows you to pay-per-flyer-impression which means that you will pay around $10 to have the flyer appear 5,000 times on Facebook. With Flyers Pro, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad instead of just appearing on their page. I think this is the more effective approach because you are only going to pay if someone is interested and if they don't click through, you still get the flyer-impression on their page, but you don't pay for it!

 

 

Step 5: Add the info you want to your flyer

Facebook will update your flyer in real time so you know exactly what it will look like when it's live. You can add text, links, and photos to your flyer.

 

 

Step 6: Set a budget and the search criteria for who should see your flyer

This is where the power of the flyer gets impressive. You can narrow your listing down to only a select group of people if you want. Filter by location, sex, age, keywords, political view, relationship status, education status, and workplace. Only those people will see your flyer.

 

 

Step 7: See your results

Your flyer will appear on the side of a Facebook profile. And again you will only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

 

 

Step 8: Monitor your progress

Facebook allows you to monitor how well your flyer is doing. Click on either of these two tabs and you will see data for your flyer. You can also go back and adjust your flyer's content or search criteria at any time.

 

Making the Case for Collaboration

There’s a phrase floating around in the higher education profession right now that none of us professionals like hearing. It brings shivers to our spines and sometimes tears to our eyes.

 

OK, maybe it’s not quite that bad… but none of us like hearing the phrase “budget cuts.”

 

However, these so-called budget “cuts” (or what I call “shortages”) are a reality for many of us today, and those of us working on smaller campuses feel the pain more than anything. How do we as advisors and directors help our students battle these shortages?

 

This professional thinks collaboration is the key when it comes to battling budget shortcomings. Collaboration is becoming more and more accepted at institutions across the country. It is no longer a rarity to see an Admissions department and Student Activities office working together. The campuses who have embraced this approach will surely reap great benefits.

 

Personally, I’ve come to appreciate the value of collaboration between departments and student organizations. In fact, nothing makes me happier than to see two student organizations pull off an activity or event in which both groups played a significant role in making it a success.

 

There are so many benefits to collaboration – including higher attendance and response to your programs, less financial commitment from your office or organization, and a higher quality program or event, to name a few. Theoretically, when you co-sponsor or collaborate on a program, you have twice the people involved but only half of the finances from your department or office.

 

As a supervisor of Resident Assistants (RAs), I am constantly encouraging my staff members to consider the benefits of collaboration – both with other RAs and with other organizations, such as the Student Activities Board (SAB). When one of my RAs plans a typical program for his residents, he might reach an audience of 10 to 20 students, which seems just fine considering he only has $25-$30 to spend on this program. However, when he calls up the president of the SAB and gets this group on board, he has instantly multiplied his audience threefold simply by having the program discussed at the next SAB meeting.

 

From a residence life perspective, it can be especially beneficial for a campus programming board to partner with a representative (such as an RA) within a residential life office. One might argue – and some previous research would suggest – that students who live on campus are more invested and participate in campus events at a higher rate than commuters. Therefore, one might suggest that having someone from the residential life office involved would be a sure-fire way of reaching this population.

 

As the advisors to these various student organizations, we should be encouraging our student leaders to think about collaborating more often. I think we will find that our students will become less selfish and more apt to consider the “big picture”.  In addition, they will learn to appreciate collaboration as a concept long after earning their bachelor’s or associate’s degree.

 

Just as important are our own efforts to collaborate with other departments. Before we can encourage our students to embrace this concept of collaboration, we must embrace it. And why shouldn’t we?

Facebook Market Place Fundraising

The new features in Facebook make for some interesting fundraising opportunities. I just haven't figured them out yet.

For those of you not on Facebook everyday, there are two major changes that just came up rapidly. The first was the launch of the Facebook Marketplace. Easiest way to think about it is Craigslist for Facebookers.

The main differences being that 1) more people still use Craigslist so it is a more efficient marketplace and 2) items sold through Facebook will be tracked along social lines (i.e. you can see you are buying a car from a 4th degree friend and ask for a reference . . .)


Maybe it is time for a new fangled bake sale:

I haven't heard of any new models using Craigslist, but they must be out there. Who has got one? Then we can talk about how something similar can be ported into Facebook's new marketplace . . .

Never Enough: Fundraising

Money is one of the great ways to introduce your student leaders to the "real world". You want something amazing to happen? You'll probably need some money. Don't have any? You'll need to do a fundraiser . . . that's where the fun begins.

Everything starts with google, right?

The industry around college fundraising is well established. Just look at all the advertisers paying top dollar to advertise:

When you see things like "proven" "guaranteed" and "free" in an advertising run that costs a bundle, put your dukes up, someone thinks you are a sucker.

Don't let your students fall into one of these pyramid marketing scams.

Encourage them to use these sites for a starting place with ideas, and then go out and put together the packages and materials on their own. They will be saving, and profiting, from skipping the broker in the middle. This is the age of the web, it is not hard to find a cup manufacturer, a t-shirt printer, or any other material source.

Great entrepreneurialism is often simple. Find a "pain" on campus and solve it - almost no one needs another plastic cup, even if it does have their fraternity on it.