Jul 10
30
The VCU Mass Communications & Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program presented the results of their social media campaigns for Nonprofits at the VCU Commons Theater on Thursday,7/29/10.
I attended, took notes, and published an article on the event. Here are the article highlights:
VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University), located in Richmond, VA, was honored as one of the two host universities to participate with the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP).
See VCU Social Media and follow @VCUsocial on Twitter for more details.
Background information:
“The Iraqi students are participating in the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program (IYLEP), funded by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and implemented by the Academy for Educational Development (AED). VCU was chosen by the U.S. State Department as one of the two host universities this summer and is the only host university in which IYLEP participants are working side by side with American students.” (From the VCU Social Media Networking and Intercultural Understanding program event notes).
Social Media Networking and Intercultural Understanding event – 7/29/10
The event got under way at 6 PM, with a brief recap of how the VCU – IYLEP partnership program was formed. VCU professors Marcus Messner and Jeff South introduced the program.
The audience was told that the participating students from Iraq and VCU were put together into teams, and given the opportunity to select a Nonprofit agency. 10 Richmond non-profit organizations had new or redesigned social media projects. 47 students from Iraq and VCU formed the teams, comprised of 24 VCU students (graduate & under-graduate), and 23 Iraqi students (under-graduate only).
The first step was to create a social media campaign for the Nonprofit. The teams were given some basic guidelines for creating the social media campaign. In general, the campaigns were to increase awareness, community support, foster greater community involvement, and create an ongoing dialogue with the Nonprofit agency.
The format for the evening was each team would have 10 minutes to present their campaign details, identify which social media tools were used, how they were implemented, campaign results, and what benefits were realized by the Nonprofit. A max of two questions would be taken from the audience at the end of each team’s presentation.
At the end of the event, the audience was given a Text Login, and an ID for each Nonprofit, with instructions to use their cell phones to vote for only one winner.
Nonprofit teams / winner campaign highlights:
The 10 Nonprofit agencies are listed, along with a brief recap of the team presentations from my notes. Twitter ID’s were listed where possible, along with the website designated in the Twitter account.
Please visit the websites, and all the social media sites, to get the full picture of all the wonderful work these agencies do in our community.
The VCU and Iraqi students shared their unique stories of how the campaigns were designed, implemented, what challenges were faced, and the campaign results, if known. Other results may be available at a later date.
One result was realized by all agencies. The use of social media to get the word out, build a stronger brand, engage followers with better information, and provide tools for an ongoing dialogue with the community was a major success.
The 10 teams consisted of:
ConnectRichmond
CultureWorks
Dream Academy
Family Lifeline
Greater Richmond SCAN
Greater Richmond Urban League
Hilliard House
Richmond Public Arts Commission
Voices for Virginia’s Children
YWCA of Richmond
Campaign voting results
At the end of the night, I had the difficult task of voting for the one team that ran the best campaign. Suffice it to say, all teams did a tremendous job in a very short time frame, and all were WINNERS!
Winner’s link - http://www.vcusocialmedia.com/2010/07/and-here-are-the-winners/
Top 3 teams, as voted by the audience:
Greater Richmond SCAN – http://www.grscan.com/
Description – Stop Child Abuse Now. Our mission is to treat and prevent child abuse & neglect in the Greater RVA area.
Goal – Reinforce brand colors, get consistent message out to prevent & treat child abuse
Social Media tools used – Twitter @rvaSCAN, Facebook, YouTube, Foursquare
Action – Added new Facebook Programs and Donate tabs, YouTube promotional video, WordPress blog site to organize news, events, newsletter, get the message out to the community, Alix Bryan (@alixbryan) created IYLEP @VCU 2010 – http://vimeo.com/12404828
Results – Social media enhancements created greater community awareness for SCAN mission.
* 1st place finish in voting for best Nonprofit campaign *
Family Lifeline – http://www.familylifeline.org/
Description – Established in 1877, mission is to provide families with the tools and resources needed to create a better future for themselves and their community.
Goal – Storytelling + Outreach + Sustainability
Social Media tools used – Twitter @familylifeline, Facebook, Blog
Action – Started a blog, averaged 20 minutes a day on Facebook, Twitter to get message across, followed related Nonprofits on Twitter, Facebook, hoping to attract new followers
Results – Increased awareness in community, 20 minutes a day plan to post updates was sustainable and produced results
*2nd place finish in voting for best Nonprofit campaign*
Greater Richmond Urban League – http://www.empowerrichmond.org/
Description – Urban League of Greater Richmond: Young Professionals network, focused on assisting Richmond with better employment, education, housing and health issues.
Goal – Increase awareness, reach 21 – 45 yr old demographic.
Social Media tools used – Twitter @RichmondYP, Facebook, Hootsuite
Action – New website created, Hootsuite used to organize Facebook, Twitter, and get the word out
Results – 75 new members obtained.
*3rd place finish in voting for best Nonprofit campaign*
Most popular social media productivity tools – Were Hootsuite (a dashboard for managing multiple accounts) and Tumblr (blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links)
Twitter categories to track comments, articles, links, results and information on the event - #vcuiylep #iylep #SMCEDURVA #VCUsocial #SMCRVA
The partnership of the VCU Social Media and the IYLEP organizations, that launched effective campaigns to benefit the 10 Nonprofits, was highly successful in using social media for storytelling, raising awareness, and creating a dialogue in the community to engage supporters. The fact that all of this was accomplished in 16 days was truly remarkable. (teams met with clients on 7/13)
A common theme and goal of many of the campaigns was to obtain maximum brand awareness, and spread the word with simplicity and sustainability in mind.
Click US and Iraqi students partner on social media campaigns to benefit nonprofits for the complete Examiner article.
