I learnt something about facebook last month. We all know that it makes money with advertisements, and the targeting of those ads is uncanny in its accuracy.
I have been involved with a children's string orchestra for 5 years now, and recruiting has increasingly been an issue. When I started there were 55 students, at the start of this year we were down to 26. Yikes! Covid-19 didn't help, and one of our conductors retired, and there are more competing orchestras these days. I felt I wasn't not doing enough, but the numbers had been waning before I was involved - in its heyday it had 80 students and they would turn people away because they were full.
We had a website. We posted on social media. We handed out flyers. We spoke to music teachers. We advertised in school newsletters. We told everyone to spread the word - I found most new students arrived by word of mouth.
We were below the number of students required to remain viable, we were getting close to shutting down. One of the new committee members said "let's boost a post on facebook." We posted on facebook fairly regularly, with photos, and videos, and contact details. It didn't seem to have any effect. "It will be around $50 to boost a post for a month, we can target people in the area who are interested in music tuition/school/community". Worth a try, what have we got to lose. Even if we only had one or two enquiries and maybe it led to one new recruit, it would pay for itself. I made a little promo video, we posted it and then boosted the post.
Well. In the first week we had around 5-6 enquiries, and that continued for the next few weeks. We've had 8 applications come in so far, and have already had 5 successful auditionees, with a few more auditions to come.
Who knew that throwing a fifty to facebook was that powerful. If I had have known I would have done it years ago. Take note - if you are looking to attract more attention to something you have to offer.
