Okay this is a bit META and I promise to put up some cool old car content as a penance. However I have an issue and I want to throw it out to people to see if they can help, or ask other people and see where we get to.
When I'm advertising events, or putting out video, or just trying to either remind people about or tell people about the forum, I'm not really sure what or where to spend my effort.
We've got a facebook page for The Gathering and for Retro Rides and both of those have a few thousand followers. However posting on fb is totally luck of the draw in terms of reaching your audience, even if you pay. We have 13k+ Likes on Gathering page, but if I post up something without spending to "boost" it, it'll reach maybe a few hundred people, if I boost it I can maybe get in front of 3-4 thousand of those people. Some times you'll get some slightly viral content (like the videos of the runs up the hill from last years show) and get literally hundreds of thousands of views, but what use for our event is a whole mass of people in Costa Rica liking and commenting on a post? Add in to this the general degradation of the usage of facebook, it is for a lot of people just their Messenger phonebook now, rather than something they actively use for social purposes.
We've got Instagram, we have nice engagement I started a new Retro Rides Official ( @retroridesoffical ) thing in November and it is over a 1,000 followers now, with daily updates, this was partly to allow me to learn a bit more about the best ways to engage with IG and partly to have a non-show presence on there so when we're over 2-3k followers I can start posting up build thread links etc. to the cool stuff on here as well as the daily pictures. Again this is a bit hit and miss and because you can't put links in captions it has a dubious amount of utility for us to help promote the awesome content in the forum (or indeed our events).
We've got the Forum! That's you lot, this is kind of self selecting from an events point of view and whilst we do have super engaged people that are here every day, or at least every week, I can't expect people that only really come to our events to come on here every day waiting for news of tickets, or whatever else. Also if I want to promote the forum and make sure we get to see all those cool builds out there it seems a little pointless promoting to the lovely people that are already here.
We've got a 45k+ strong mailing list. Now there are people out there that would kill for a mailing list that targeted and that large. Problem is the only thing I can do with it is send plain text emails that will automatically make links out of urls, that's it, that's all. I could talk to Proboards about exporting the current email list to a proper mailing list tool (whilst respecting the current email settings of all users), which would allow me to get a better idea of how many people are opening it and what is useful. Maybe this can re-engage some folk who have dropped away, or at least get those lovely people that have had to go off and live lives with jobs and kids and all that, and nicer experience from the emails (I've had messages from people saying they really appreciate them when they arrive, so I guess some people like them
). That having all been said, those are people who know us, probably know our events and are at least partially engaged with the site already, not as tightly as the active forum folk, but still not as difficult to reach as those that haven't even heard of us.
So... then what?
Right now my concern is making sure we promote the shows to the right folk in the right manner and up until recently that has been 70% facebook, 25% forum and 5% emails and IG, then relying on word of mouth. I'm losing faith in facebook, not because of the latest stuff about them, but because I've noticed decreasing activity across the board on it. Couple that with the need to reach those people that don't already know about us. I'm kind of not sure what the best plan is. Magazine advertising is expensive, but definitely will reach people we won't normally reach, however it is super hit and miss and quite expensive, relatively speaking.
I've got Flyers for the Goodwood show coming (hopefully tomorrow) which I hope to get spread around various events before hand, Wheels Day etc. However there is only so much physical ground I can cover (maybe we need a Retro Rides Street Team ).
Opening the floor to any ideas... thoughts... rantings about social media*...
*actually don't do that.
When I'm advertising events, or putting out video, or just trying to either remind people about or tell people about the forum, I'm not really sure what or where to spend my effort.
We've got a facebook page for The Gathering and for Retro Rides and both of those have a few thousand followers. However posting on fb is totally luck of the draw in terms of reaching your audience, even if you pay. We have 13k+ Likes on Gathering page, but if I post up something without spending to "boost" it, it'll reach maybe a few hundred people, if I boost it I can maybe get in front of 3-4 thousand of those people. Some times you'll get some slightly viral content (like the videos of the runs up the hill from last years show) and get literally hundreds of thousands of views, but what use for our event is a whole mass of people in Costa Rica liking and commenting on a post? Add in to this the general degradation of the usage of facebook, it is for a lot of people just their Messenger phonebook now, rather than something they actively use for social purposes.
We've got Instagram, we have nice engagement I started a new Retro Rides Official ( @retroridesoffical ) thing in November and it is over a 1,000 followers now, with daily updates, this was partly to allow me to learn a bit more about the best ways to engage with IG and partly to have a non-show presence on there so when we're over 2-3k followers I can start posting up build thread links etc. to the cool stuff on here as well as the daily pictures. Again this is a bit hit and miss and because you can't put links in captions it has a dubious amount of utility for us to help promote the awesome content in the forum (or indeed our events).
We've got the Forum! That's you lot, this is kind of self selecting from an events point of view and whilst we do have super engaged people that are here every day, or at least every week, I can't expect people that only really come to our events to come on here every day waiting for news of tickets, or whatever else. Also if I want to promote the forum and make sure we get to see all those cool builds out there it seems a little pointless promoting to the lovely people that are already here.
We've got a 45k+ strong mailing list. Now there are people out there that would kill for a mailing list that targeted and that large. Problem is the only thing I can do with it is send plain text emails that will automatically make links out of urls, that's it, that's all. I could talk to Proboards about exporting the current email list to a proper mailing list tool (whilst respecting the current email settings of all users), which would allow me to get a better idea of how many people are opening it and what is useful. Maybe this can re-engage some folk who have dropped away, or at least get those lovely people that have had to go off and live lives with jobs and kids and all that, and nicer experience from the emails (I've had messages from people saying they really appreciate them when they arrive, so I guess some people like them
). That having all been said, those are people who know us, probably know our events and are at least partially engaged with the site already, not as tightly as the active forum folk, but still not as difficult to reach as those that haven't even heard of us.So... then what?
Right now my concern is making sure we promote the shows to the right folk in the right manner and up until recently that has been 70% facebook, 25% forum and 5% emails and IG, then relying on word of mouth. I'm losing faith in facebook, not because of the latest stuff about them, but because I've noticed decreasing activity across the board on it. Couple that with the need to reach those people that don't already know about us. I'm kind of not sure what the best plan is. Magazine advertising is expensive, but definitely will reach people we won't normally reach, however it is super hit and miss and quite expensive, relatively speaking.
I've got Flyers for the Goodwood show coming (hopefully tomorrow) which I hope to get spread around various events before hand, Wheels Day etc. However there is only so much physical ground I can cover (maybe we need a Retro Rides Street Team
).Opening the floor to any ideas... thoughts... rantings about social media*...
*actually don't do that.
