[algoshift]

I've learned Facebook and LinkedIn can produce really disappointing results.

Over the last couple of weeks we've been pushing hard to develop awareness for a worthy cause (special needs education tools). Details here:

http://www.tommyteaches.com/special-education.php

(Yes, taking the opportunity to also get a little attention on HN. Sorry, this is important.)

Analytics tells us that LinkedIn, in particular didn't have good engagement. A few strategic posts on CraigsList probably did ten times better LinkedIn.

The best results we got have been due to friends, family, neighbors and local teachers making a push to reach to their immediate connections (their friends, family and co-workers) to have them engage. Also some blogs produced results here and there.

In general terms building an audience for just about anything on the internet is really hard these days. Luck can be a factor, but more and more it seems to require a lot of hard work and "street smarts". For example, I contacted every host at a local TV station with slightly different versions of the same story in order to see if anyone would be interested. Call it A/B testing. One was, and that helped a bit (just a bit).

Good luck with your app. It looks interesting.

[e12e]

> I've learned Facebook and LinkedIn can produce really disappointing results.

(...)

> The best results we got have been due to friends, family, neighbors and local teachers making a push to reach to their immediate connections (their friends, family and co-workers) to have them engage.

Do you mean facebook ads in your first use of Facebook? Because I would think "organic" use of Facebook would be a contributing factor to "reach ... immediate connections"?

I've never quite understood the idea of Facebook "ads". If you want to do "viral" marketing -- let your product/cause spread via social media via actual human connections. If you want to do advertising, do advertising.

[algoshift]

Reaching a mass of people via Facebook is, to some degree, relatively easy. If you have 50 to 100 people you can reach directly and they, in turn, reach out to their direct connections you'll "touch" a pile of people quickly.

However, from that to getting people to take action --be it install and app, vote for a cause, visit a website-- that's an entirely different matter.

In our case one of the things we came across is a demographic that simply does not use Facebook. Older parents of the very kids we are trying to help.

The next issue was triggered by a dialog that pops-up when you click on the vote button. Facebook tells you that you are about to share your profile and your friends list. Of course a lot of people recoiled at that immediately. The last thing parents of children with special needs want to do is open the doors to their facebook account. I get it. I absolutely do. We probably lost hundreds of potential supporters this way. It is perfectly understandable. I don't understand why facebook would not have the option to be able to simply log in or vote on something as a means of identifying yourself yet without granting access to your life (or projecting the fear of this happening).

I suppose the efficacy of trying to build an audience through facebook depends on your demographic. If your audience lives on facebook it is probably a great channel. If you audience does not or if they are concerned about their privacy there could be issues.