- Brian Morrissey

NEW YORK In an attempt to "fish where the fish are," a leading educational tour operator has debuted a Web film series on Facebook.
 
EF Educational Tours, which runs trips to Europe for teens, has worked with Real World production company Bunim/Murray to shoot 10 episodes that chart the travel experiences of six teen Facebook members. The series is hosted on EF's Facebook fan page, where visitors can chat with the cast or friend them.
 
The "Life on Tour" effort is an attempt by the tour company to use technologies teens are intimately familiar with to complement EF's efforts in direct mail and paid search, said Erik Qualman, global vp of online marketing.
 
In all EF shot about 50 minutes of content, which it is releasing in five-minute installments. The first two episodes debuted last week, with one slated for release each week until Dec. 18.
 
The episodes chart the experiences of the teens as they travel to Lucerne, Paris, Florence and Rome. The Facebook page includes an application for teens going on trips to get in touch. It also automatically updates travelers' status based on their itinerary.
 
EF is privately held and doesn't disclose how many students take its trips per year. It has 26,000 employees in 53 countries.
 
EF is also hosting the videos on its Web site and through YouTube, but Facebook is the main outlet, Qualman said, since it has the sharing functionality and built-in audience. One thing that hasn't been decided: whether EF will buy ads from Facebook to promote the series. A factor that made Facebook an attractive outlet is EF doesn't have to pay to distribute content there, Qualman said.
 
"That's the hope," he said. "If it's good enough content and it takes off, you don't have to buy anything. A lot of the revenue generated by Facebook doesn't go into their pockets."