How to advertise efficiently On MitAssist, we have fond experiences, first and foremost, attracting young men based on a community-approach and by mediation of knowledge. The fact that they can receive help to solve their problems is only advertised to a smaller degree. We consider this the secondary part of the recruitment process. The primary focus is attracting the young men to the website and then motivate and encourage them to use it frequently. Therefore, we recommend the following:

Paid advertising

How to recruit through advertising

If your counselling is based in the digital world, it makes sense to recruit online. All it takes is one single click from your target audience to get into the website, and you will have a further reach than by using, for example, printed materials. Furthermore, you will meet the boys in an arena where they are already spending several hours of their day, and where they are already looking for answers to their questions.     From focus-groups in schools and in youth clubs, respectively, we have gained a thorough insight into how teenage boys uses the internet in particular to find answers to their problems in real life. Utilizing that knowledge, we decided to advertise on Google. It is important to make sure that the ads show off the expression that boys can be part of a “boy-community” on MyAssist. Text advertisements: We do 4 types of advertisements. They are composed so that the content fits what the boys are searching for Google and can be matched by useful content from MitAssist simultaneously.

  • Knowledge advertisement: Links to the website where the forum is.
  • Themed advertisement: Links to a specific subject, ex. “Family & relationships”.
  • Blog entry advertisement: Links to blog entrys, ex. “Are you into boys or girls?”
  • Chat advertisement: Links to the group-chat.¨

Displayed advertisements: These are a bit different from textual advertisement because they reach the target audience unsolicited. For example, these displayed ads might appear on a website where teenage boys are usually gaming or shopping for clothes. Therefore, this type of ad can be an ideal opportunity to increase awareness of your website in the introductory phase of your project. On Facebook & Instagram, the ads are tailored by us based on the interests of the user. ‘Interests’, in this context, is based on the things that boys have interacted with on the two social media sites earlier. The advertisements match the characteristics of the target audience such as age, gender and interests. Like on Google, the purpose of the ads on Facebook & Instagram is to meet certain objectives like, for example, making young men participate in the chat, ask a question in the forum, read the blog entries and so on. Advertising for the chat is only active during the opening hours. This creates a bigger opportunity for a direct effect of the money spent on advertising, like young men participating in the chat during their first visit. Good to know:

  • The systems at GoogleAdwords & Facebook constantly change and update. It might prove advantageous to seek assistance at, for example, a marketing agency to make sure that your resources are not spent in vain.
  • Facebook offers free counselling if you spent a certain amount of money on advertising. This amount, like the systems at Google & Facebook, also constantly changes.

Free advertising

How to advertise without using ressources

If you want to make sure that awareness of your website is spread properly, it is of utmost importance that your site has a high ranking on Google. This means that you need to focus on ‘search-engine optimization’ (SEO). Securing a good placement on Google is very potential for your website since this becomes free advertising for you. This is why we, at MitAssist, works with:

  • Creating metatexts for all the different sections of the website.
  • Producing relevant content in the shape of blog entries.
  • Tagging the individual sites with relevant search terms.

    We use Snapchat to recruit new users and activate the existing ones. Crucial to achieving success on Snapchat, the boys already need to be acquainted with MitAssist, and they need to follow the profile. Our work on Snapchat is focused on creating:

  • Closer relations between MitAssist and the users.
  • Nearer and more personal communication.
  • Awareness in regards to unanswered questions.
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This work by CDYC (CPDP) was developed in the project “Digitally Agile Youth Work” with funding from Erasmus+. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at our webpage www.cfdp.dk. The full collection includes materials from partners from Scotland, Ireland, Finland, Austria, Germany and Denmark. This can be found at www.digitalyouthwork.eu

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