Facebook for Races

Facebook is one of the most important promotion channels that your race can use. The basics are:

• Step 1 – Your race needs to have a Facebook Page that is dedicated to your race.
• Step 2 – You need to put great content up there.  Think Pictures, fun and motivational posts, surveys, etc. See other successful races linked to in the posts outlined below.
• Step 3 – Link your Facebook App to your RunSignUp registration. This will enable users to share the fact they registered with their friends. It will also put the registration widget right in your Facebook Page so it becomes easy for people to sign up right within Facebook.
• Step 4 – Don’t rely on simple posts.  You need to market and pay for Facebook advertising. Posting something on your Page will get to less than 5% of your fan’s newsfeeds. The reality is that Facebook is driving traffic from advertising fees and forcing races (and other businesses and non-profits) to pay to get visibility. There are many ways to do this – boosting posts, creating ads, creating offers, creating target email lists, etc.

The graphic on the right is from a 450 person race this fall (up from 290 the previous year). The race director spent about $400 in Facebook ads – and you can see it worked drawing in about 22% of traffic.  For a $25 race, that $400 investment probably generated about $2,500 of registration fees directly or indirectly.

We have written a number of blogs on the topic to help you understand your options:

• How Run the Bluegrass Uses Facebook
• Facebook Offers – a very effective advertising program
• Facebook Ads – different options for targeting your ads.
• Facebook Mobile Targeting
• Facebook SignUp – putting registration right on your Facebook page
• Facebook SignUp App Traffic – seeing how The Cooper Norcross Run the Bridge event benefited from the RunSignUp Facebook App
• Facebook Ad Conversion Codes – how to track the actual registrations from your Facebook ad
• Facebook Advertising Lessons – learn from others.
• Facebook Custom Targeting – Upload email or phone lists to target specific audiences, as well as show your race ad on Facebook to people who have visited your website.

So set aside a few dollars and give Facebook Advertising a try!