How to Market Your Race Organically on Facebook

Organic marketing on Facebook...It's definitely not what it used to be!

There used to be a time when you would post something on your page, hoping that everyone following your page would see it. But not anymore.

The decline in Facebook organic reach (the number of people who get to see what you have to say without you spending money on it) is nothing new. Pretty much ever since Facebook decided they had to make some money out of the platform, brands had to pay - or find new ways - to reach their target audience. And, as of early 2018, that got a lot lot worse.

So where does that leave you?

Well, if you're hoping to promote your race without having to pay Facebook for it, your approach will need a massive rethink. Posting the odd announcement or asking people to "sign up" once a year, simply won't cut it anymore.

The rules of the game have changed. And you need to change with them:

• Forget about how many Likes you have (and don't even THINK about paying a penny to boost your Likes count further). Learn how to boost your content engagement by 2x, 3x or more instead. This will give you exactly the same results as having 2x or 3x the followers you currently have.
• Learn to reach people through your personal profile. We're not talking messaging a bunch of guys here and there. We mean reaching thousands of people in your target audience without ever having to spam or annoy any of your personal connections.
• Be smart, for goodness' sake. Choose the right type of content to show people. Show a lot more of it. Build your weekly content schedule in minutes. Then sit back and let engagement do the rest.

It is the aim of this course to drive these points home and give you everything you need - down to the screenshot - to help you make your time spent promoting your race on Facebook a success.

But first...

Does Facebook still matter?

That's the first question you should ask yourself. Our answer? Yes, absolutely it does.

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in Facebook's trip-ups or get carried away by articles heralding Facebook's demise. But here's what's important to you, as race director:

1. Facebook is huge and everyone's on it. We're talking 2.3 billion monthly active users huge. 68% of Americans are regular users. Even people who are not on it are on it and everyone has a reason to visit, even if it's not as often or as eagerly as they might have done in the past.
2. The Facebook demographic is a perfect match for the people you're trying to reach. Who cares if your neighbour's teenage son is taking his Fortnite commentary to Snapchat? Let's face it: you don't even know what Fortnite is! :) And, more importantly, that guy is not even running races. So why would you care?!
3. Your assets are on Facebook. Think of your Facebook page and all the relationships you've build on Facebook over time with friends and other races. Why not try to make the most of that?

Why go organic

There are many reasons why, despite the recent adverse changes in Facebook's newsfeed algorithm, ramping up your organic marketing on Facebook is a good idea:

1. It's all free.  ⬅
2. Engagement you get organically is better that engagement you have to pay for. You already know this if you've run ad campaigns on Facebook.
3. Your organic followers make the best target audience for your paid marketing. Even if you do run ads on Facebook, it's your organic fans that will yield the best results. So it make sense to work on growing that audience.
4. You're already marketing organic, so why not learn to do it well? It's not really a question of whether you should try organic marketing. You're doing it already. Question is, should you learn how to make your time go further?

About the Facebook organic marketing course

There's some things you can expect to learn from our course. And some things you definitely won't.

Here's some things this course will not show you:

1. How to drive people from outside Facebook to your Facebook page. Things like adding your Facebook page link on your signature or cross-promoting on other social media. We won't be showing you this because (a) you're probably doing this already (b) it yields poor results and (c) you should be driving people from outside Facebook to your website, not your Facebook page.
2. How to drive people from your website to your Facebook page. Things like adding Facebook Like buttons or exit popups to your website. We won't be showing you this because (a) you're probably doing this already (b) it yields poor results and (c) you should be driving people from your website to your mailing list or asking them to take some other high-value action.
3. How to increase your page Likes with junk followers. Things like getting your cousin, accountant or high school buddies to Like your page. We won't be showing you this because feeling good about your page's Likes count won't do anything for your race sign-up count.
4. How to spam, beg or trick your way into people's Facebook feeds. We won't be showing you this because, frankly, we don't know how to do it...And also because that stuff never works in the long run.

Instead, what this course will show you is how to turn your time into quality Facebook referrals to your race website that end up making an impact on your event bottom line.

Our strategy

So here's how our organic marketing strategy works:

1. We show you how to make your race more than a race on Facebook. By making your page the place where your audience turns to for their news, discussion and other quality content that keeps them engaged with your race throughout the year.
2. We show you how to make yourself your race's #1 ambassador. By using your interactions in your target community to turn your time on Facebook into promo time for your race.
3. We show you how to work smart. By optimizing what, when and how you post through your page and personal profiles to maximize engagement and drive people into taking valuable, calculated actions that lead to sign-up.

Is this going to be easy? Sort of - but it's not magic. You still have to put the effort in. But, provided you do and follow our lead, you will get to see real results.

Sound good? Let's get started!