Jennifer Mannarano was scrolling down a friend’s Facebook page when she spotted a familiar and very nearby aquatic center.

So the Tie Breaker Family Aquatic Center is on Facebook now...hmm, Mannarano thought as her mouse arrow scurried toward the link.

Click.

The aquatic center’s page was intriguing. But not just for its photos of inner tube splashes and frolicking toddlers. What caught Mannarano’s attention was that hundreds of people had added the aquatic center to their list of “likes”, a label Facebook users put onto pages they approve of and want to be linked to.

Mannarano, a Hopkinsville mother of two young children, quickly discovered the reason. The aquatic center’s page was filled with comments from customers trying to win free passes.

Every day the page put up a new contest. For example, one weekday customers were invited to post something they liked about their trip. Everyone who did so got entered into a drawing. Three winners were picked and announced on the page. Then aquatic center officials would mail the customer their passes.

Another contest required customers to guess the total attendance for opening day. Those who came closest to the actual number (1190) got a free pass.

Games and giveaways are the drivers behind the aquatic center’s Facebook debut, says Cindy Daly, an account executive with the Evansville, Ind., firm Magnetic Image that the city contracted to market the aquatic center.

In one month, the aquatic center’s page is already linked with about 800 and counting different Facebook users. That not only means that all the park’s promotions need only a couple keystrokes and screen clicks to  instantly reach a huge market. It also means that, like Mannarano, all the friends of those Facebook users can find the aquatic center’s page by stumbling across the link.

If each of the aquatic center’s Facebook likers  has 100 friends, that’s a possible 80,000 people within reach. The marketing potential is exponential.

 But easy access is only one of the advantages of marketing through social media, Daly said. The other is interactivity.

Traditional media such as television, radio and publications don’t interact much with their intended audiences. Radio call-in contests are as social as advertisers could get in the past.

But that is far surpassed by the messaging, linking, posting and file sharing capacity of Internet-based media. Nowadays, the advertiser can pinpoint potential customers and cultivate mutually beneficial relationships much more effectively.

Mannarano became a regular visitor to the aquatic center’s page. She entered as many of the contests as she could.

This also contributed to her family attending the aquatic center more regularly. On a recent trip, she lay under a sun canopy holding her 2-month old Kennedy, who was already beach legal dressed in a zebra-stripe bikini. From there Mannarano could watch her 4-year-old son Elliot and husband Derick drift along the Lazy River tube ride.

The Mannaranos live only a few miles away. They found themselves coming so frequently to the aquatic center that they decided to get season passes. At only $49 per person above two years old, the cost for an entire summer’s access added up to $150.

Definitely a deal for her family, Jennifer said.

But as the Facebook page and a check of license plates in the parking lot, the aquatic center is even becoming known as a bargain for families who live further away.

For the last four summers, Sharon Bohnenberger and two teenage daughters have driving from their Clarksville, Tenn., home to Hopkinsville every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“We stay at the aquatic center all day from opening 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” Bohnenberger stated emphatically.

Bohnenberger joked that the trip is worth it because she’d rather look at waterslides than dishwater. But after laughing, she explained that no other attraction within commuting distance can offer all-day fun so affordably.

Her daughters Michelle,13, and Brenda, 14, agreed. Both of them invite friends regularly.

Bohnenberger was pleased to learn about all the promotions and giveaways on Facebook. She grabbed her cell phone, opened her Facebook account and was linked to the aquatic center’s page in less than a minute. Her family already has season passes, but she thought free passes would come in handy for bringing friends.

Heather Nees, wife of a Fort Campbell soldier, said the word about Hopkinsville’s aquatic center, has spread fast among military families.

Nees found out about it on Facebook. Being new to the area, she emailed other military spouses about affordable summer activities. Soon, she had several messages posted on her Facebook page recommending the aquatic center and even pasting in a link to its Web site.

After visiting, Nees said she could see what all the hype was about. She arrived 15 minutes before opening and there was already a long line at the gate.

Daly said her firm has hit the Clarksville and Fort Campbell markets with plenty of radio and television commercials. Some of those commercials can be viewed at yet another social media hotspot: on the aquatic center’s own YouTube channel.