When I first started my page, I went through my own friends and invited many of them to like the page. I tried to only invite people who would be interested in the page, so it mostly included people who live in Anchorage or attend UAA. Through this strategy alone, I was able to gain a significant amount of quality likes on my page. I also shared the page using my personal account, which led other people to share the page, and that led to likes as well. The assistant coach also used the highly active Twitter account to tell people to go like the Facebook page, and I used the Facebook page to encourage people to follow the Twitter account. Additionally, the assistant coach shared some of the Facebook posts onto the Twitter account with links to guide traffic to the Facebook page, especially in the early stages. I used hashtags that were already designated by the Athletic Department, so many of my posts feature the hashtags "SeawolfMBB", "GoSeawolves", and "FearTheHowl". These hashtags helped group my posts together and made them more easily accessible. Also, since all of the sports teams use "GoSeawolves", fans of other sports (Hockey, volleyball, women's basketball, etc.) had a better chance of finding my page.
At the beginning of the semester, I needed to build a following. In order to make the page effective, I had to convince people to like the page. The most logical way to do that was to try to get the players' families and friends to like the page. The assistant coach of the basketball team decided he wanted to introduce this year's team with baby pictures. He would send me pictures of the players as babies, and I would post them and let people guess which player the picture was of, then after about a day I would post a side by side like the one above to introduce the player. I also made sure to tag the players in their respective pictures so their friends and families would see the picture. The one above ended up reaching over 2,000 people. The player, Curtis Ryan, is from Australia and thanks in part to that post, over 100 people from Australia ended up liking my page, which I found out through the insights tab.
Before I started my campaign, I also said I was going to ask the assistant coach of the women's basketball team to promote my page. Her page is very popular and has a lot of followers, and the audience is obviously very similar, so I knew it would be a good tactic. I went to school with her younger brother and sister, so I got her number, contacted her, and asked her to give my page a shoutout. She did, and that post is in the picture above. The post got my page several likes and helped get the word out about the page.
About a week after giving my page a shoutout, the women's basketball coach texted me out of the blue with some very valuable advice. I had already planned on tagging the players in posts since I had seen her have success doing that on her page, but she told me about a feature I was unaware of. She told me that when people like my picture, I can click on the "likes" button under the picture and invite people to like the page. Many people who like the pictures have already liked the page, but since the players are often tagged, and since posts get shared, I got likes from people who hadn't liked the page yet and I was able to quickly invite them to do so. As you can see in the picture above, not everyone who was invited ended up liking the page, but I gained a significant number of likes through this
method.
All of the above pictures are examples of posts from throughout the semester. As you can see, I always tagged at least one player in each post to try to increase post reach. The second picture goes along with the first picture. I wanted both pictures to show how many people have liked and shared that post, as well as the post reach. It has reached over 6,000 people and counting, and has nearly 100 likes. I have gotten a lot of new page likes through that post by inviting people who liked the picture to like the page. There were a lot of people for me to invite since the post got shared 36 times, which I was extremely happy about. Since one of my goals was to increase attendance at the games, I wanted to make sure to post on game days to remind people to go to the game, or tune in online if the game was in another state. I also hoped to increase interest in the team by posting about wins or other major accomplishments in hopes of enticing people to come see the team they've been reading about on Facebook.
Unsurprisingly, the largest number of likes came from people between the ages of 18 and 24. Since this is a college basketball team, I figured that college students would be the main audience for the page. Additionally, many of the people I invited are my age, so naturally many of the likes are from that demographic. Several other age groups constitute a significant amount of likes, which is also unsurprising since many players parents and relatives liked the page and shared the posts for their friends to see.
The people who liked my page are probably much more diverse than what most people will see in their "People" tab. I got likes from the United States, especially Anchorage, but I also got likes from Australia, Norway, Spain, etc. The likes from Australia and Norway may seem random, but the team has two players from Australia, and they signed another for next year (which I posted about), and they also have a player from Norway. I think this geographical diversity is amazing. I think I am doing something worthwhile with my time because I am updating and creating content for people who live all the way across the world and love to read updates about their sons or relatives.
As you can see in the picture above, the time of day did not have a very big impact on post reach or post engagement. I think this is because the posts that did well got shared and distributed enough that they stayed relevant on peoples' timelines for more than just an hour or so. I think I can contribute that success to having tagged the players, as well. I knew that optimal posting times are 9 AM and 9 PM so I kept that in mind, but I didn't focus on it very much. Time of day was somewhat irrelevant for me because I could not dictate when games ended, when big news (like major awards) broke, or when games were scheduled. Also, as I talked about previously, my followers are very geographically diverse, so posting time is less important due to varying time zones.
Most of my page views were just to the home page. This isn't surprising since I didn't have a lot of other content other than pictures and videos, which are the only other tab that was visited. People did not necessarily need to go anywhere else, though, since all of my posts were easily accessible from the home page.
Post reach was sporadic throughout the semester. Some posts did better than others, illustrated by the drastic spikes in post reach in the graph above. I think this had to do with who was tagged and what the content of the post was. For example, my post about Suki Wiggs scoring a school-record 46 points achieved a post view of over 6,000, but posts reminding people to tune in to games got somewhere around 200-500 since they weren't as significant. My post reach appears to average roughly 1,000 though, which I am very proud of.
My page likes increased steadily over the course of the semester. The large spike in likes in September corresponds to the time I spent inviting people to like the page. The other spikes in likes correspond to popular posts and significant updates. Additionally, I went back through my friends and invited more people from Anchorage to like the page, but I still tried to focus on people who I thought would be interested in the team, or at least the page.
Overall, I am very proud of my page. I started it from nothing and built and maintained it until it became a successful and useful source of information. I think that the baby picture campaign from the beginning of the semester was very useful for gathering likes before the season began. Since games had not started yet, I did not have a lot of content to post. I didn't want to have no likes once the season started, though, because then my posts about games wouldn't be very useful because few people would even see them. The baby picture campaign was successful because I tagged the players which led to their families liking the page. The families had a vested interest in the page because it provides updates about their family members' team. Additionally, UAA only has one player from Alaska, so the page was very valuable to many people who cannot make it to games for obvious geographical reasons. I am glad that I was able to provide this service to them, since Facebook is a very convenient source of information. I think that inviting people to like the page after they liked pictures was one of the most helpful strategies I employed. I am very thankful that Coach Afoa gave me that piece of advice, because it helped me out a lot throughout the semester. Of all the tactics I utilized, that was the most valuable and produced the most results.
Honestly, I don't think I would do anything differently if I had to do this campaign again. I think that it went very well for me. The page wasn't even existent when I started this semester, and now it has over 500 likes and is a vital source of information for an audience. I can't recall any part of my campaign that went poorly. I'm sure there is still plenty more for me to learn, but this was a very successful attempt for me considering I have never created a Facebook page before.
I wrote all of the posts for my page myself, using pictures and resources sent to me by the assistant coach and the Sports Information Director. This was a very beneficial experience for me because I want to work for a college athletic department. I've always thought of myself as a good writer, but writing sports articles and post game updates is a lot different than writing essays. This was a valuable opportunity for me to practice writing about events and updates that relate directly to the field I want to go into. The UAA Sports Information Director offered to be a reference for me if I need one for a job or internship, so I got a lot out of this campaign. I learned a lot and I found that I really enjoyed this experience. I have already told the coach and the SID that I would be happy to continue to run the Facebook page if they want me to. I am moving back to Anchorage next August and I hope to work for UAA, so this might actually serve as the "foot-in-the-door" I need to get a job. The SID has complimented me, not only directly to me but to other people who have relayed the information to me. He has said that I have done an awesome job and that they are very thankful since the men's basketball program was in desperate need of a Facebook presence. This is very important to me because if I get a job at UAA I want it to be a result of my own hard work and merit, not because of who my dad is.
