When Rotary Central Melbourne launched Bearbrass Probus for active retirees in February, it thought it could walk away and let the group thrive. But nothing went to plan. Within weeks the virus locked down Melbourne and the 18 foundation members were left like a shag on a rock – no meetings, no activities.
After briefly floundering, the joint Rotary/Probus members picked up and ran with Zoom, initially for weekly speaker meetings and now fortnightly. After a brief window of physical activities (lunch, golf, wine appreciation), Bearbrass is now locked down again. But vigorous Facebook (FB) marketing in a difficult market has helped the club grow to now more than 40 members.
The FB marketing techniques https://www.facebook.com/bearbrassprobus/ are leading-edge, thanks to paid-for coaching from an out-of-work travel bureau owner.
Taking the week to July 11, Bearbrass Facebook had 206 “engagements” (user activity) from six posts, up 30% on prior week, and 52 accumulated page “likes” compared with say, 444 at Rotary Central Melbourne which has operated FB for many years. Bearbrass’s best post reached 385 people for 108 “engagements”.
Bearbrass “engagement” rate for posts is typically 50-90% of views, compared with 0.5%-1% in general FB marketing (involving relatively large numbers of users). Overall Bearbrass FB activity weekly equates to 50-100% of the largest Probus group in Australasia/South Pacific.
Among the techniques is eyeball-grabbing videos (usually involving attractive music, singing, and or cute kids), posts quickly picking up on appropriate current affairs (such as the death of WW2 icon Vera Lynn), and news items about members. One member was a world-class wildlife photographer in South Africa; another was a motorbike racer at 250kph; and a third’s career was in costume design and dressmaking for high-profile TV serials. Always the club goes for highest-quality pics and videos, rather than routine items of no general interest.
In addition, the club ‘tweaks’ the all-important Facebook algorithms. These formulae assess the attractiveness of sites and posts and publishes only the best to users’ ‘feeds’. While it seems tacky, it is essential to chivvy friends and members into “liking” and “loving” site activity for the sake of the algorithms.
Bearbrass is still too small to furnish good-sized activity sub-groups and is keen to get to critical mass of 70-100 members.
Know any e-capable retiree recruits, anywhere in Australia? Contact bearbrassprobus@gmail.com