Archrival Finds College Marketing Managers

for Nebraska Book Company

For more than three years, Archrival has learned has studied  the effectiveness of advertising through social media platforms.  While “trial and error” has been the standard approach to these uncharted waters, the one commonality in a successful formula has been the creative. 

Facebook puts  marketers on the same playing field.    Title:  Max 25 characters.  Body:  Max.  135 characters.   An image space to fit 11o px wide by 80 px high.  Bottom line, create an ad that your demographic may just find worthy of their friendship.

When Nebraska Book Company, a national retail used-textbook company, sought to launch a Student Marketing Manager Program (SMM) for fall 2009, it was clear that the best platform would be to showcase the zany appeal of the job to prospective applicants using social media. 

Nine test markets ran two Facebook ads simultaneously for two weeks.  One ad simply had a title, “Campus Marketing Job,” with typical classified job description. The other, “Crybabies Need Not Apply,” used copy that left much of the job description. to one’s imagination. Both ads used the same image.

The ads were optimized on a rigorous schedule, but without taking one ad completely off the grid, it could not compete with the one calling out wimps.  Curiosity got the best of any student looking for a flexible, part-time on-campus job, especially when the image looked like three intramural co-eds celebrating victory. 

Sixty-five percent of the clicks came from the ad, which read like a post that a friend may have slammed up on your wall.   In the end, all nine campuses kicked off the fall term with an SMM in place, and will continue to build on social media advertising through fan pages and events through the school year. 

And, there is no big secret to social media success, just deliver the message in a form that a college student could interpret and process on their terms.