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Instagram announced last month that they will start running ads in your Instagram feed. According to Instagram, ads will look like the following: "We have big ideas for the future, and part of making them happen is building Instagram into a sustainable business. In the next couple months, you may begin seeing an occasional ad in your Instagram feed if you’re in the United States. Seeing photos and videos from brands you don’t follow will be new, so we’ll start slow....

LinkedIn Sponsored Updates for Camps

Posted on November 1, 2013

A few months ago LinkedIn launched sponsored updates. According to their blog post, "Sponsored Updates can be seen on desktop, smartphone and tablet devices and will clearly be marked “sponsored,” appearing in the member’s homepage feed along with the organic posts from their network and the companies they follow. Members will have the option to “Follow” the sponsoring company as well as “Like,” “Comment” and “Share” posts with their network." In order to take advantage of this, camps will need to...

Marketing your camp’s event on Facebook

Posted on October 30, 2013

Does your camp have open houses, city visits, home parties, etc? If so, you should be marketing them on Facebook. Here are a few quick tips for your camp to market an event successfully on Facebook. 1. Create a Facebook event with fun photos and information on the event 2. Add multiple admins and ask them to invite friends to the event 3. Invite fans in the event's location to your event 4. Encourage your fans to invite their own friends to the Facebook...

Snapchat for Camps

Posted on October 28, 2013

Snapchat is a very cool real-time photo chatting app on iOS and Android. According to Business Insider, they have 350 million photo uploads DAILY. It may still seem like a little app to a lot of people, but the growing popularity among middle and high school aged students is something that most marketers (including camp marketers) can not ignore. I always like to look toward big brands for advice on what smaller brands should be doing when a new social medium...

When should I start my social media efforts?

Posted on October 25, 2013

I get asked every single day by camp directors about the right timing for starting their social media efforts. The answer to this really depends on the camp and situation, but my answer always is "the longer you wait, the more you will miss out on." What I mean by that is: You will be missing many opportunities to promote your camp by not having a social media strategy in place You won't sign up new campers using these innovative channels that...

Pinterest and advertising for summer camps

Posted on October 23, 2013

Last month Pinterest announced that they will be starting to provide promoted pins (also known as ads). They are currently testing this with a few companies and promoted pins will only show up in search results and category feeds. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before this is open to everyone and available in the Pinterest news feed. Of course, this is exactly how Facebook started out, first allowing a few promotions on their right hand side and...

Can you do it all?

Posted on October 21, 2013

I talk to a lot of camp directors who want to know if it's possible to do it all. What they really mean is, can a camp successfully run a social media program without a consultant. I've written before about how many hours a month you can save by hiring a social media consultant and I estimated that a full-time social media focused person would spend about 55 hours a month to accomplish everything that needs to be done. BUT, here...

If you could only do one social media activity, what would it be?

Posted on October 11, 2013

A lot of camp directors I talk to are VERY short of time. In fact, most of the times their entire staff is short on time. I totally understand that, which is why I am posting today about the ONE social media activity you must do. This means, if you are short on time that you shouldn't do ANY activities except for this one. It's better to do one thing very well then to have a mediocre Twitter/Instagram/Blog/etc. If you can...

Social Media Round Up For Camps: October

Posted on October 9, 2013

in Social Media Roundup