Writing for New Media

For my viral marketing project, I highlighted a campaign called “Rep. Scott Boyd’s Pink Hair for Breast Cancer Challenge.”  This campaign is a challenge from Rep. Scott Boyd for $10,000 to be raised for the PA Breast Cancer Coalition (PBCC).  If the goal is met, he will dye his hair pink for the first home run derby on July 1st.

The overall goal is to raise $10,000 for the Coalition.  With this campaign, I wanted to reach out to people outside of the primary audience of the PBCC.  I created an event page on Facebook for the campaign.  This page was a way to spread the message to non-conventional constituents.  All of my personal Facebook friends in addition to the friends of the PBCC staff were invited to the “event.”

At the time of this posting, there are 61 people “attending” the event with 122 people “maybe attending.”  With this event, it will appear on the Facebook homepage of those who are attending or maybe attending until it ends on July 1st.  This serves as a reminder for people to take a look at the campaign page.  Prior to the creation of the Facebook event, a total of $475 donated.  At the time of this posting, a total of $640 has been donated.  As a bonus, the Facebook Page has increased its connections as an indirect benefit.  At the beginning of the campaign, the page had 2,171 fans.  Now the page has 2,252 fans.

The campaign will continue until July 1st to try and raise $10,000 for the PA Breast Cancer Coalition.  The PBCC is doing a push to encourage its Facebook friends to invite 10 friends to donate $10.  This way it can increase it’s fan base on Facebook and reach additional people.

For our viral marketing campaign, Brittney Paulshock and I created a Facebook group to raise donations for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) disease. We are targeting the Multiple Sclerosis Bike Challenge that will take place on May 23, 2010. This bike challenge is a 50 mile race that will take place in Chestertown, Maryland. The overall goal is to raise money for the Society, and all proceeds will go directly towards the disease.

The Facebook donations group was inspired by Brittney’s farther, who was diagnosed with MS in 1994. Facebook is a useful social media tool that has proven beneficial in raising awareness. With close consideration to the audience we are trying to reach and get money donations from, Brittney and I created the “group” using her mother’s account (who has more “friends” on Facebook and contacts who are aware of the disease than Brittney or myself).

The page we designed provides an in depth description of the event as well as a link to the M.S. website for “friends” of Facebook to make a donation. Brittany’s mom created an event on Facebook last year and successfully raised over $1,000 in donations. The goal for this campaign is to raise over $1,500 in donations and raise awareness of the bike event. By targeting a specific audience who either suffers from the disease or knows someone who has suffered, we increase the chance of reaching our $1000 goal.

Finally, by becoming a “fan” of national MS Society Maryland Chapter on Facebook, we are showing an appreciation and partnership with this group.

For my viral marketing campaign I decided to make a facebook fan page for my mom’s business. My mom has a small business where she handmakes felted purses and scarves and other things out, and I wanted to create a fan page to get her business name out there. She already has a website, but I wanted this to be a way for her to share information with everybody about when her next shows are, and also as a way for her to connect to her audience. My goal was to get at least 75 people to become a fan/like it, and I really wanted to reach out to members of art guilds that she belongs to who are already on facebook. I thought facebook would be the best way to do this since it’s the most popular social networking site.

After having it created for a little over a week, 90 people currently like the page. My mom has added pictures to it, and I added a video I created for her business. I’m really pleased with the progress of the page, and it’s something that her and I will continue to constantly update.

To see her fan page, click here.

For the simplicity of this assignment, it became one of those things where you think way too hard about it and end up struggling to find ideas. Originally, I was going to use the :30 second spot I was producing for Advanced Video, and just post it to YouTube and set a goal as to how many views I wanted to achieve. However, shortly after coming up with this idea and thinking more about it, I realized it probably wasn’t going to work out, so I had to go to plan B (which there wasn’t a plan B yet at the time).

Finally, plan B arrived. I decided I was going to make a fan page for the sprinters on the Elizabethtown Track and Field team. I am a part of the sprint group on the team, so I thought I’d just have a little fun with this and see how many people would really become fans of us. So I entitled the page the “Elizabethtown Track and Field Sprint Core“. The goal was to reach 150 fans by the deadline.

I created the fan page on Facebook, advertised the page on my status, tweeted about it each day, and also used LinkedIn to get the word out. Since Facebook and LinkedIn have “status” bars, I left those be while the assignment was still going, and I made sure I tweeted each day so it reminded those who hadn’t become fans yet, to get on and become a fan.

I had set up the fan page the day after the assignment was given out and in 3 days, I had already reached over 100 fans. Though, once it had gotten to triple digits, the amount of people becoming fans started to slowly decrease. I had sent an invite to all my friends, over 200 of them, to become fans. The majority seemed to join at once, with the stragglers joining in one by one. At the deadline of the assignment, I ended up receiving 175 fans of the Elizabethtown Track and Field Sprint Core, surpassing the goal of 150.

The page had reached 150 fans quickly, so I upped the goal to see if it would reach 200 by Friday, only to fall short by 25. It was still impressive nonetheless.

I think one last reason behind creating the fan page for the sprinters is the fact that Track and Field doesn’t get a whole lot of recognition around the school like basketball, soccer, and baseball does. So this was one way just to kind get our names out there. I posted pictures and for the captions of each sprinter, I entered in a little nickname that I deemed appropriate for each person. Some are inside jokes, others may be fairly obvious.

The one surprising thing about this was the interaction from the alumni. Several of them actually posted a couple of old pictures back when the team had first started. A couple people also posted videos of races from years past, so that was really neat to see some members of old that I never raced with.

All-in-all, Elizabethtown Track and Field Sprint Core = SUCCESS!

For our viral marketing campaign, I decided to do something that meant something to me and would be fun.  My choice was World Creativity and Innovation Week.  It started April 15 and went through April 21.

One of the methods of communication and networking that I used to get the word out was through the facebook group I created.  I had daily wall posts on the group page of ‘Your Creative Spark’, messages to members of the group, and status updates on my personal page.  I posted on my twitter almost daily as well.

I wanted to get at least 100 members and just get people to participate and be creative.  Being creative is something that people should do on a daily basis.  I hoped to prompt that creativity and get them to express and share it with others.

The facebook group started to grow and when I got my first post I was ecstatic!  I thought, someone is paying attention!  Then, I started to send out the messages to the members each day with an inspiring subject.  The posts slowly started to trickle in and ‘Your Creative Spark’ grew.  By the end of the week, I had 37 posts, 122 members, 7 links, and 1 reply to the discussion board.  I was very happy with the outcome and I think that I really struck a chord in some of their right brains.

For our viral marketing project, Sam Alleman and I decided to have a competition via Facebook. We created fan pages on

Fans

Wednesday, April 14, and invited all of our friends. I didn’t have a personal goal of how many fans I wanted to get, I just wanted to get more than Sam. I feel like I succeeded because as of 11:38 AM on 4/123 I have 334 fans (or I guess they’re called likes now) and Sam has 259 fans/likes.

I mainly used Facebook and Twitter to market my fan page. I linked my twitter account to my fan page, so that every time I wrote on my wall, it was tweeted to Twitter. In addition to the social media, I also used word of mouth. When I would see a friend in the cafeteria, I would mention the competition to him/her and tell him/her to invite their friends.

Although, I won the competition overall, I feel like I didn’t win. Less than a third of my friends on Facebook became a fan of my page. I was hoping for a larger percentage of that. However, I thought this viral marketing project was very fun and interesting. I was a good way to learn how viral marketing campaigns work.

As president of the K9 Club, one of my most important tasks is to plan Pup-E-Palooza. This event is a big annual fundraiser to benefit animal rescue groups and related organizations. At the time the viral marketing project was assigned, I had already created a Facebook event page for Pup-E-Palooza. I invited all my friends.

Within a few days after I made the page, the number of confirmed guests had hit 40 and stagnated. Of course I was pleased to have 40 people who had committed to come, but I wanted more (with no specific numeric goal in mind). So when the viral marketing campaign was assigned, I sent out a message to everyone who was attending and maybe attending, asking them to invite their friends.

The number quickly jumped to 60 and then 70, and stagnated again at 77. Then, I wrote on the wall of the event to keep people interested. I also looked through my friends’ friends and requested a number of other people I know from Etown to be my friend too. I added them for the exclusive purpose of inviting them to Pup-E-Palooza.  As of right now, 101 people are confirmed guests on Facebook. I increased my guest list by 250% as a result of the viral marketing campaign.

The ultimate test of whether it is “successful,” however, will be at the event itself. There is an 80% chance of rain on Sunday. I sent out a message to all the confirmed guests saying that Pup-E-Palooza is still on, and still outside on Brinser Field no matter what. I will update this post on Sunday to let you all know about how many people attended, and how much money we raised for the rescue groups. Thank you to all of you in COM315 for your support!

Update: Pup-E-Palooza went fairly well, considering the weather. I think the Facebook event page really helped to raise awareness for the event; however, it was terribly cold and windy, and not a lot of people came. I know there were many people who committed to come via Facebook and did not come. But the viral marketing campaign was worthwhile, and I would definitely do it again.

Jen and I decided to use viral marketing to compete against each other through Facebook fanpages that we created for ourselves. I didn’t have a goal number-wise, only that I wanted to get more fans than Jen. After I created the fanpage, I invited all my friends to join and asked them to invite others. I also used status updates on my personal Facebook to promote the page, and I included the link to join. I used my Twitter account to tweet about the competition, and I used word-of-mouth as well.

I was successful in getting fans but unsuccessful in beating Jen. Come on guys. As of 7:20 p.m. Thursday, April 22, I have 258 fans, and Jen has 331. I’m pretty pleased though, considering that I started with 300 less friends and because more than half the number of my friends are fans.

Of course this competition is still going until tomorrow at noon, so YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO “LIKE” ME.

The viral marketing campaign that I have designed was a donation event for the Multiple Sclerosis Bike Challenge that is occuring on May 23, 2010. This bike challenge is a 50 mile race that will take place in Chestertown, Maryland. My father was diagnosed with M.S. in 1994 and in honor of him, my mother has taken on this challenge. We are trying to raise money for the Society. All money will go directly towards M.S.

In order to invite people to this event, Flori and I have designed a Facebook event that provides a description of the bike race, the date and time and the M.S. website that will provide a direct link to the friends to make a donation. We decided to use Facebook since it will target the right people and it will provide them with a direct link to the website instead of sending money through mail. My mom designed this event on Facebook last year and raised over $1,000 in donations. Therefore, our goals include: raising over $1,500 in donations and people volunteer to participate in the bike/walk challenge. This event on Facebook will be successful because it will generate traffic to the website. People can invite people to the event which will bring in more donators.

For my viral marketing campaign, I decided to raise awareness about the radio show on wwec 88.3 fm that I host on fridays with my friend, Mike.

We made a fan page on Facebook and called our show “The Brunch Hour with DJ’s Mike and Gav.”

When I first started out, I wanted to get at least 100 people to join. We have been very lucky and have gotten 166 likes/fans (as of 3:43 p.m. 4/22/10). We kind of wanted it to be another way for people to request songs and give us some feedback. I can also be used to set up guests.

In order to get people to join, we talked about it over the air last friday. Mike and I have also been sending out suggestions to our friends on facebook to join in on the fun. I also tweeted about it. But just once.

It has been successful so far in getting 100 people to join. So that is good. As far as fan interaction, we are lacking in that. Big time. We have a couple requests for songs on our discussion board from my friends suggesting ridiculous songs.

But, Steve let us know he wants to be a guest over the page. So that is a positive. We need more of that.

I think the page has potential. One thing we want to do is have some updates leading up to the show to get people thinking about it and sending in requests.