BY BILL SHUMWAY
North Country This Week

How can you reach as many people as possible in St. Lawrence County when publicizing your organization’s next event or fundraiser?

Right here – on NorthCountryNow.com and in North Country This Week.

Pardon us for bragging, but the other alternatives – including social media, broadcast and email newsletters – don’t even come close to delivering the number of readers and viewers we do.

If your goal is to attract as many people as possible to a festival, concert, athletic event or other community activity, we are here to help for free.

Next time in this space, we’ll offer tips on how to best submit publicity information.

But today, we’d like to explain how NCTW and NCNow reach far more people than social media. That’s important if you are in charge of publicity, because your job is to spread the word about your upcoming event to as many of our county’s 110,000 residents as possible.

It’s easy to assume “everybody” sees your Facebook posts– you probably have hundreds of Facebook friends. And dozens of people -- or hundreds if you are lucky -- may comment or share your post. Reading comments only reinforces the impression that “everyone” is talking about your post.

But on personal pages, Facebook doesn’t actually tell you how many people see your post. In most cases, it’s less than 1,000.

However, “insights” are available to show how many people see your posts if a Facebook page has been set up for your organization, business or political campaign.

The bad news – on average, only about 6.4% of people who have “liked” a “business” or “community” Facebook page will see each post (see reason 8).

We can confirm the low Facebook viewership on the NorthCountryNow.com Facebook Page, believed to be the third-most “liked” Facebook page in St. Lawrence County, with 17,841 “Likes.”

If your page has 1,000 “likes,” only 64 people on average will see a particular post unless it is shared or commented on at an unusually high rate.

But don’t fear – NCTW and NCNow can help you get the word out!

The headline for your message could be seen as many as 70,000 times at no cost to your group. That’s far more than even the most successful Facebook post.

Each day, the home page of NorthCountryNow.com is viewed an average of 30,000 times. Think of it as the equivalent of the news feed on your Facebook page. The headline for every story about upcoming events appears at least once on the NCNow home page.

Each week, North Country This Week is read more than 40,000 times – 23,095 for the Potsdam-Canton edition and 18,428 for the Massena-Ogdensburg edition. The announcement of your event will appear in at least one edition and possibly both.

In addition, upcoming events are included in our “7-Day Calendar” online and in print where people can turn to find out “What’s Going On” for a particular day.

So don’t forget us next time you are responsible for promoting and publicizing a community event. Email press releases and photos at least two weeks ahead of time to Events@NorthCountryNow.com.

We want to help make your next event successful!

Bill Shumway is editor and publisher of North Country This Week and NorthCountryNow.com.