When we launched the promotional campaign for 3121 this summer, I wrote then about our Google AdWords campaign to raise awareness of the new feature, but it's not the only social advertising platform we're using to reach Hill staffers. We've also been using the self-serve advertising available to users of Facebook and LinkedIn. Let's take a look at what we're doing with Facebook.

When 3121 opened up to the full Hill community, we changed the focus of our ads from "3121 is coming" to "3121 is here." In fact, at all times we've kept two ads in rotation at a time - one featuring the 3121 logo prominently and another highlighting some aspect of the campaign we think people should know about.

Here is what our "awareness" ad looks like right now:

And here is what our "opinion" ad looks like:

You may also wonder how we make sure that these ads reach only the right people. With the Google AdWords, we were able to identify people by approximate location thanks to geolocated IP addresses. Facebook uses an entirely different system altogether, and one that may in fact be even more reliable.

And it's very simple: Facebook knows where you work, because you told them. While some advertisers do backflips to figure out whether they are reaching the right people, this is the only parameter we need to set.

With approximately 8,000 people on Facebook listing the United States Congress as their employer, a substantial majority of the Hill is on Facebook (no surprise there). We've delivered these ads 1.9 million times, or more than 230 times per Hill staffer.

And we like to think of Facebook as just the place to reach 3121's most likely adopters. If you're a regular Facebook user, you're more likely to use other social networks, and more likely in turn to understand 3121 from the beginning.

Did you learn about 3121 from Facebook first? Which ads have you seen? Let us know in the comments!

William Beutler is a 3121 Community Manager and member of the Public Affairs team at New Media Strategies.