Since I poke fun at a lot of marketers out there, you’ve got to know, it’s not personal. In fact, I poke a lot of fun at myself as a marketer. We learn from our mistakes, and I’ve made some doozies over the years. My first foray into marketing on Facebook turned out to be an excercise in building a group no one in the target wanted to join.

I admit it, I didn’t have a clue about social media when I first started out. Back in 2007, like most marketers back then, I wanted to “get on facebook.” I thought this was our ticket to targeting college students, a huge customer segment in the travel industry. But, one thing was clear, we didn’t have the faintest idea what to do, once we were “on Facebook.”

We didn’t know the difference between a Facebook Fan Page and a Facebook Group, so we flipped a coin and decided to start a Group. We got our interns involved to add “relevance” and “coolness.” We went around and around about what we should call the group, what we should put on the group, what we should do with the group, we really thought the thing to death, or so we thought. . . and we came up with the name, I’m A Broke College Student and Want to Travel Intrepid.

Now, we didn’t even think at the time, that no one in the demo would want to join a group admitting that they were flat broke. We were so excited just to have a group, we didn’t think it through. But, in retrospect, it’s obvious. Who wants to admit they’re broke?

No wonder, 3 years later, the group remains at 29 “broke college students,” most of who were just friends who joined the group out of pity. Oh well. Live and learn.