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Some people do puzzles to stay sharp, I like to run a marketing model. The kind where I set up a spreadsheet, make some assumptions and justifiable estimates, and then hope like hell my hypothesis is in the ballpark. From there I usually have to spin it to make it easy to digest. Good times.
This week an idea came up about the effectiveness of using PR to support a regional project that would cover Central to Western NY vs using a Facebook Fan page.
Here’s some background with the names changed.
About the Newspapers:
Below are the five largest regional newspapers and their circulations that I found by searching around. The two assumptions that I added are:
a) Views – each purchased newspaper is viewed twice
b) Impressions – I assumed that an article like this would be read by 20% of the buyers.
Bottom Line: Getting an article in each newspaper in the region would be seen by 180,000 people.
NEWSPAPER Circ Readers/Circ Views Impressions Buffalo 160,000 Roch 119,000 Syr 85,000 Bing 65,000 Elmira 23,000 452,000 2 0.2 180,800
Now, Facebook:
a) Group size – I used 30,000. I realize that this is a fairly large group, but there is a similar group in the region that already has more fans than this, so it is certainly achievable either working independently or doing a coordinated project with the other group.
b) Impressions – Total impressions are generated by getting “Like” clicks and comments that will then get your post to appear on Facebook walls of non-fans. To determine how many impression a single announcement post would get, I used 5 impressions/fan. This is a very conservative estimate since it is based on the impressions I get for another project that is non-consumer so less viral, but let’s go with 5.
FACEBOOK Group Size Impressions/Fan Total Impressions 30,000 5 150,000
Bottom Line: A post to our groups Facebook page would get 150,000 impressions.
From the bottom line numbers it seems like newspapers would still prove the strongest plan.
Intangibles:
If you ever placed a newspaper article, you know how much work it is. Now think about doing that for five newspapers. It’s a lot of work to get thos 180,000 views. Along with the work, you have also relinquished the message to local writer, so you have lost some control in the message. Now let’s look at the effort for doing a Facebook post. Once you tweak the voice of your press
Now let’s look at the effort for doing a Facebook post. Once you tweak the voice of your press release to talk directly to your buying audience, you can post it right up. You control the message and you don’t have to do all the follow-up and scheduling involved in the newspaper placement. For this I estimate 150,000 views.
But still 150K is still less than the 180K for the newspapers, so why is this better. First the work effort is less, but #2 is the big thing — you can do it again next week!! Why not? Add a few new pictures and an update to the schedule, and bam! Another 150,000 views.
FACEBOOK
Status Update Imp/Fan Fans: Finger Lakes Wines
imp/fan 2 30,000 62,821
Picture Update 4 to 6 30,000 150,000
Related articles
- Everything You Want To Know About Facebook Groups For Using It (savedelete.com)
- Facebook Groups As A Small Business Intranet Option (webpronews.com)
