This is a clip of one of my favorite thinkers in the “new media” arena, Clay Shirky (www.shirky.com), recently speaking at Web 2.0 Expo in SFO. In a nutshell, he addresses that perplexing question I so often hear my peers (40’s – 50’s) ask one another – “Where do these kids find the time to fool with all this new Web 2.0 silliness??” The answer – these kids do not waste all their free time being zombies in front of the boob tube being fed whatever nonsense the TV gods would serve up (as I and my peers did at their age). No, they are multi-tasking and it almost always involves a mouse that allows them to engage in true interaction with their media of choice.
vSocial is happy to announce a new addition to the family. No, not a new baby. An intern! Jennifer Stash is a recent Marketing grad from Arizona State University. She’ll be posting to our blog as time permits, and we’re glad to have her on the team. vSocial recently concluded hosting a great promotion from Hallmark, Move Dad. As a first post, here’s Jenny’s take. Enjoy.
Hallmark promotions – Dancing Dads
Dads will do anything for their kids; they coach sports teams, scare away monsters from under the bed and watch endless hours of Hannah Montana. Hallmark’s Father’s Day promotion tapped into this element of a dad’s life by creating the “Daddy of all Dance Offs”. We launched the contest on May 12 that allowed dads to upload videos of themselves dancing to “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer.
Hallmark held three local contests at festivals in Oregon, Texas and Indiana that put dads up on stage to dance. The dances were recorded and some highlights along with the winners were posted on the contest homepage, MoveDad.com.
Other dads across the country were able to upload their videos directly to MoveDad.com.
Giving Dad a spotlight to show off was Hallmark’s purpose in creating this contest. We were there to host the site and make sure things ran according to plan. vSocial developed the platform that powered the social media tools necessary for the videos to be uploaded and viewed. Hallmark has a strong following, but in order to remain a top-of-mind company, having a promotion that encourages its customers to interact is necessary. Using social media to achieve these goals will give Hallmark the chance to create a stronger brand identity and following in its user community.
A slow start confirmed that some dads were nervous to enter the contest and that others still had not even heard about their chance to shine. As the days went on, more and more fathers braved the camera. One winner and two runners up were chosen at each of the three festivals. Ten finalists from the online competition were selected by a team of Hallmark judges and their videos were available to be voted on through MoveDad.com. We monitored the voting from June 2nd through the 6th. On June 5th, Hallmark recorded 128,159 page views. In order to increase the number of votes, emails were sent out by Hallmark to its user base and a commercial aired to entice more people to log on and laugh along with Martin A-Go-Go, Super Dad and Old School.
A total of 1,018,676 page views were recorded on June 6th and ultimately, Paul Stickler from St. Joseph, MO took home the most internet votes. The high increase in traffic on Friday June 6th teaches us that the key to a successful contest is promotion, promotion, promotion. People can’t enter a contest if they don’t know about it. While it is hard to reach everyone, over one million page views after emails were sent out and a commercial aired shows that the promise of a laugh from a dancing dad will bring people to the website. The Hallmark promotion helps users to connect with the brand as well as with each other. Social media is the catalyst to create brand communities and enhance their effectiveness.
Groundswell, a new book on social media by renowned Forrester Research social media analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff may have the answer. In the tradition of social media itself, Charlene and Josh are sharing the answer. At least some of it. Click here to use the Forrester Research Social Technology Profile Tool and find out.
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