Blogger, Twitter friend, and runner Dave Fleet done good:
I’m a fanatical runner. I’m not particularly talented, but my dedication to my training enabled me to qualify for the 2008 Boston Marathon on April 21, 2008.The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon and one of the world’s most prestigious road racing events. Besides the Olympic trials and the Olympic marathons, Boston is the only major American marathon that requires a qualifying time.
Exactly two months before the race I announced that I would use social media and the Boston Marathon to raise money for cancer research.
Objectives
The objective for this was simple:
- Raise $3,000 for the world-class Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, based in Toronto (a somewhat arbitrary goal)
- Raise awareness of my fundraising effort using social media, to see if these tactics would work for a promotional effort
Tactics
I threw my PR knowledge largely out the window for this effort. I’d decided up-front that I would use entirely online tactics to see how effective they could be.
The tools I chose to use:
When I announced the initiative, this blog had 278 subscribers. My running site had very few. I had around 500 Twitter followers (Twitterholic’s stats only go back to March 1) and my Utterz account had just a few subscribers.
I wrote seven posts on my PR blog:
I wrote three posts on my running blog:
I also wrote dozens of Twitter messages over the two months, updating people on my progress and providing information on how to donate. Lastly, I recorded frequent posts through Utterz. The posts were a mix of video, audio, text and pictures about my training for the race. I posted all of the recordings to my running site - along with the route maps from my runs, these 31 posts formed the ongoing record of my training through this effort.
Results
Output
While my running blog continued to receive negligible traffic, several posts to my PR blog received more:
- Using Social Media To Support Cancer Research - 643 views
- Another Social Media Miracle? - 285 views
- Auction - 217 views
Over these two months, this blog grew to over 500 subscribers. How much of that is due to this fundraising effort, I can’t say. I’m pretty sure it didn’t hurt, though. Meanwhile, my running blog subscribers remained relatively static, while my Twitter contacts grew to roughly 825.
My announcement of the fundraising effort also spawned a mini-fundraiser with Keith Burtis and Tommy Vallier, who generously volunteered their time and effort to set up an online auction to raise additional funds.
The effort generated some healthy interest on Twitter. Unfortunately, Twitter’s historical search is far from comprehensive, but you can see some recent posts here (for now).
Outcome
- Raised $2,315 for Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation
- I can trace 59% of the donations to people who only (or primarily) know me through my online presence
- Oh, and I finished the marathon in 3:18:30
No Comments » Posted on April 24th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn
Last fall I was hit by the double whammy of hearing about the Facebook Beacon drama while at the same time having my Facebook experience being turned into getting bitten by Werewolves, being asked to join mundane groups, and then noticing absolutely no activity on those groups that I was actually eager to join. The allure of Facebook wore off as easily as it had captured me.
That’s because, at least in my opinion, the creators of Facebook, didn’t make the right adjustments in what would best be described as user experience as they perhaps should have. Perhaps that would have been to difficult to accomplish, but I do think it had an overall negative effect.
And the whole Beacon thing infuriated me. Who the hell was Facebook - and their retail partners - to jointly decide they would let my friends on Facebook know what I just purchased?
Now with MyDataIsMyData around, and with the fact I’m both using and meeting others for business purposes, Facebook is making a comeback. I’ll never trust it, and I’ll use it more judiciously, it’s finally back on my radar.
No Comments » Posted on April 19th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn
According to Neville Hobson, “only 18% of executives from participating UK companies see blogging and social networking as valuable, compared to 50% of US businesses questioned.” Very sad indeed. Via NevilleHobson.com. More info:
- Companies in the UK are lagging behind foreign counterparts in getting up to speed with social media, with 22% of participants claiming that they are still “learning”, compared with a global average of 18%. Only 9% of UK businesses claimed to be at the “experimentation” stage.
- 23% of respondents blame a lack of senior management commitment for the slow uptake, while 36% say it is due to a lack of skills. However, budget restrictions were not seen as hurdles in the UK, compared with a 10% global average.
- Viral marketing in social networks is also disregarded by UK companies and, according to 25% of UK executives, viral campaigns have very little brand impact. In contrast, three quarters of US executives believe the opposite.
No Comments » Posted on March 25th, 2008 by Chris Abraham
America Online owns quite a few very popular and very profitable music, teen, and gossip sites, TMZ for instance, that we marketing and PR professionals and uber-geeks scoff at. Well, I think AOL makes good investment devisions. I also think that they do a good job of not over-branding their possessions as being AOL. Bebo is another one of those super-popular but under-coveted Social Networking Services that are probably under-valued (cheap at $850 million) and more stable, less fickle. The opposite of Facebook, which, which popular, is over-valued, under-profitable, and could implode in the model of MySpace. Here’s the poop about the purchase, via c|net.
In an unexpected move, AOL has acquired social-networking site Bebo. The price tag: $850 million in cash.
Rumors had floated over the past few months that Bebo, which has over 40 million members, was up for sale. Reports suggested a $1 billion price tag, but there were few hints as to potential buyers. Though Bebo had already partnered with AOL’s AIM messaging client to facilitate friend-invite interoperability between the two services, even the most creative blogger speculation didn’t seem to point to AOL eventually buying the social network.
No Comments » Posted on March 13th, 2008 by Chris Abraham
Just read a nifty ClickZ article about that survey I recently blogged about.
From that, a quick rant. Here’s a cut an paste from the end of the article;
While brands are certainly coming around to the idea of social media, agencies should be careful to manage expectations, cautioned Nail.
“Clients, particularly the slower-moving clients, want best practices,” he said. “They want proven models.”
That’s not always realistic. Whether it’s video sharing, social networking sites, or micro-blogging, “clients want to get into it, but want guarantees, want the cookie cutter approach,” he said. “That’s not going to happen.”
How true.
It can be a precarious path we’re on in social media. We’re often dealing with clients - or angencies that represent them - that would rather not get into this social media thing. But they’re realizing that they have to. And they want it to be as painless as possible. Cookie cutter, plug ‘n play. But that’s not what it’s about.
Just like the rest of marketing related practices.
No Comments » Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn
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