UT’s advertisements are difficult to miss in the Tampa Bay area; they are on the radio, on billboards and in local newspapers.
Lately though, you may have noticed UT ads popping up on Facebook pages.
In addition to more traditional methods of advertising such as print and broadcast, the university recently began to amp up its online advertising efforts.
‘The medium we choose to advertise in is usually dependent on our goals and the target demographic we are pursuing,’ Eric Cardenas, Director of Public Information, wrote. ‘Facebook is a more recent advertising venture that we started this semester to attract current students (enrolled at UT and other institutions) to enroll in summer classes at UT.’
The advertisement for summer courses that has appeared on Facebook is sponsored by the Office of Continuing Studies. The ad was launched on March 2 and is scheduled to run through the end of June.
‘We’re doing it as an alternate way to reach people as opposed to just using print and other traditional ads as used in the past,’ Karen Full, Director of the School of Continuing Studies and Summer Sessions Enrollment, said. ‘We wanted to try another route this time to see who else we could reach.’
Facebook places ads on pages that are believed to match an advertiser’s target audience.
Facebook allows advertisers to choose target audiences by selecting variables such as location, age, sex, education, relationship interests and languages.
Full said that Continuing Studies used targets for education, age and location.
She also said Continuing Studies has been trying to target the adult market for evening college in addition to hitting the traditional student market.
While traditional advertising varies in expense and is usually paid for per spot or placement, Facebook charges per hit on an advertisement Cardenas said.
When asked if she thought the summer session advertisement on Facebook has been successful, Full said it’s too early to tell.
‘It’s something that we’re just trying but Facebook seems to have a rising audience. We felt like it was another avenue for us to take,’ she explained.
Full added though that a similar advertisement placed on Yahoo! had more hits and seemed to be doing better.
Cardenas said he suspects the university will continue looking into advertising online on other social media sites.
‘We believe online advertising is an important tool in many of our marketing strategies,’ he wrote.
Sarah Gottlieb can be reached at sgottlieb@ut.edu
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