heystephanie.com » Social Media

Meet Danny Brown & The 12for12K Challenge

Stephanie Garcia — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:02:48 +0000

If you thought corporate brands were the only ones diving into the world of social media, you’re wrong. Non-profits are leveraging the social media landscape as well to optimize their communication efforts, raise funds and maximize awareness for their cause.

In fact, if you’re active within the Twitter community, you may have seen several of your followers with a 12for12k Challenge border surrounding their avatar. The 12for12k Challenge is the combination of social media and fund-raising.

The concept is simple:

12 months of the year
12 charities, a different charity each month
$12,000 per charity

To learn more about the 12for12k Challenge, I reached out to founder, Danny Brown, for an informal interview.

1. Tell us about the concept behind “The 12for12K Challenge” (i.e. how you came up with the idea, what prompted you, etc.).

The idea was simply to try and help as many good causes as possible in 2009. For anyone that visits my blog, they’ll see a list of charities I support. I wanted to take this further and help organizations that are great causes but may be suffering from either awareness, support or funds.

The prompt was from reading newspapers and speaking to non-profit friends, about how traditional fund-raising is being hit hard by both the economy and the cost of getting your cause into the open. It’s clear that social media can offer solutions to both these issues, and that’s when the idea started taking shape.

2. How did you (or supporters) spread the word about 12for12K?

We’ve used a variety of tools and mediums to raise awareness for what we’re trying to achieve, and the charities themselves. Twitter has been hugely effective for us, particularly with the use of the 12for12k Twitter avatar. This leads to people questioning Twitter users sporting the avatar what 12for12k is all about, and that leads to conversation. Which is still the best way to promote anything.

We also have a 12for12k Facebook group, the main 12for12k site with blog, the 12for12k promo video, and we’ve recently set up a blogger program for bloggers to get directly involved with 12for12k.

We’ve also held fun events like a Tweetathon, a virtual pajama party and live tweetups, and this month we’re looking at holding a virtual 12for12k karaoke – more details on that soon!

3. What charities have 12for12K supported and what was the outcome (i.e. hit target donation $12K, maximized awareness surrounding the cause, etc.)?

January was WarChild; February was Stop the Silence; March was Share Our Strength; April was Yehu.org; and this month is Hospice of Peel. As far as donations go, we have only broke the $12,000 barrier once (for the March charity) while the others we have raised on average around $5,000.

Obviously we’d love to hit the $12,000 and we will continue to look into ways to make this happen, but I think we’re hugely happy at the support we’re receiving so far. Plus, it’s been a matter of raising awareness about 12for12k, and I feel we’re reaching that now. We have a huge announcement to make for June and November should also be an exciting time as we combine with a great organization.

I know the charities we’ve supported so far have experienced a lot of new people visiting their sites and wanting to find out more, following our partnership. That’s all we ever wished for, so on that front, I think we can be really pleased.

4. Tell us about this month’s 12for12K charity project Hospice of Peel (i.e. how was the charity chosen).

The Hospice of Peel charity is a perfect example of the way the whole 12for12k thing works. We’ve never wanted to be in the mindset of, “Here are our 12 charities – give us your money!”. Instead, we want to involve our supporters as much as possible. So we ask for recommendations of charities we could possibly support.

This is what happened with this month’s charity. Daniel Patricio is a young guy in Toronto doing some amazing things through social media, and is an active supporter and volunteer for the hospice. We’re already connected on Twitter, and Daniel asked us if we could look at Hospice of Peel. It seemed a perfect fit for our ethos, and they do amazing work, so it made it an easy organization to support.

5. How can our readers help support “The 12for12K Challenge”?

There are a number of ways. Obviously the first is by donating to each month’s chosen charity – you can find out about Hospice of Peel and how to donate here.

We know times are tough, so if you can’t afford to donate, but you still wish to support and have a blog, you can use our blog badges to display on your blog. These link directly to 12for12k and help raise more awareness.

And, of course, just let your friends, family and colleagues know about us and what we’re trying to do. The more we can make people aware, the more we can help a given month’s charity.

6. How can non-profits get involved?

First, make sure you meet our criteria. We want to make sure we help each charity as much as possible, so we have four guidelines:

No more than 10% admin cost
Accounts must be available to public on request
Need to have a plan for sustainable change in place, and not just offer a quick-fix solution through donations
Need to accept Paypal

If that’s you, then we’d love to consider you. Just email charities@12for12k.org and let us know a bit about you, and we’ll definitely look.

More About Danny Brown
Danny Brown provides business branding and social media consultancy services to the consumer and commercial markets, from small start-ups to Fortune 500 businesses.

San Diego 12for12K Charity Event

Stephanie Garcia — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:27:03 +0000

This past weekend, my husband and I participated in a nationwide Tweetup for 12for12K and Mom It Forward to support the non-profit organization Yehu.org. Yehu is a microfinance organization in the rural coastal region of Kenya for the poor, by the poor. They provide financial services, business opportunities, and skills training for poor rural entrepreneurs in Kenya.

Yehu’s mission is to enable these entreprenuers to save and earn interest while providing these entrepreneurs access to micro-loans which can help them start or expand their business.

To support Yehu.org, 12for12K and Mom It Forward teamed up and hosted special events throughout the month of April with 100 percent of the proftils going towards the cause.

The San Diego 12for12K charity event was held at the Hard Rock hotel’s newly relaunched rooftop bar and lounge, Float, where fellow San Diego tweeps met up to to help raise funds and awareness. It was great to see so much support and finally being able to meet tweeps in person. In fact, a big congratulations goes out to Rachel Kay Public Relations, Downtown Rob of WebWizards.net, Cinthya “Sugar” Jones, and promotions partner Rich and Creamy for hosting a wonderful event. I especially enjoyed the 12for12k-tini, the photo booth, and look forward to supporting next month’s charity. At the end of the night, the event raised $1500. Awesome work everyone!

To learn more about The 12for12K Challenge and support for Yehu.org, visit the official 12for12K blog.

Since the month of April isn’t over yet, you are more than welcome to chip in for the cause.

Credits: Photos courtesy of James Gose and template created by Leiko Beck Designs.

5 Types of Social Media Campaigns

Stephanie Garcia — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:39:01 +0000

In the article, “Are Your Customers Ready for Social Media,” we discussed how you can use Forrester’s Social Technographics® profile tool to asses how your customers will engage in a social media campaign based on what they’re already doing online.

Today we’ll review five types of social media campaigns that you can create to engage your consumers and promote your brand. We’ll also discuss the pros and cons of each campaign type so you can decide which type of campaign best suits your audience.

Before we begin, I’d like to clarify that the term, “social media campaign,” is used in this article to describe customized contests and promotions that companies launch to engage consumers in their advertising message.
Social media campaigns leverage user generated content (UGC) created by brand loyalists to promote a company’s brand, product, or advertising message on multiple social networks. UGC in general can be broken down to five categories: Photos, Blogs, Design, Videos, and Mixed Media which combines all types of UGC.

Photo Campaigns

Photo campaigns are easy for consumers to participate in. Majority of online users have photos stored on their desktop and are familiar with how to upload photos to websites (i.e. Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, etc.). As a result, the barrier to entry for photo campaigns is relatively low.

With photo campaigns, you decide what the theme of your campaign should be. One example of a photo campaign is Sugarloot’s Paparazzi Princess Contest. Sugarloot asks members to submit their ‘paparazzi-worthy’ pic to the to be eligible to win a designer handbag.

While photo campaigns are low barrier to entry, it’s important to keep your campaign theme simple. A theme such as, “Share a photo of you and your best friend,” may draw entries of two girls as best friends or a girl and her chihuahua. Be specific or you’ll be moderating irrelevant entries all day.

Blog Entries

Social media campaigns that ask participants to create a blog or submit a story are also low barrier to entry campaigns. As the campaign sponsor, you create the theme and list the requirements that participants need to meet in order to be eligible to win a prize(s). DebtGoal, for example, is currently running a campaign on Facebook that asks participants to share their thrifty tips on how to save money.

The skill level required to post a blog is easy and you can expect to see a lot of entries. Unfortunately, what you might find in a blog campaign are entries that don’t relate to the prompt or entries with multiple grammatical errors. Furthermore, blog entries in a campaign are typically less engaging than photos. Visitors to the campaign will see lines of text and may become bored with the campaign and leave versus a photo campaign that’s more pleasing to the eye and drives more engagement.

Design Campaigns

Design campaigns are fun because the company is asking their consumers to be creative with the brand. One of my favorite design campaigns was the Design a T-Shirt for Honest Foods campaign. Honest Foods and Brickfish provided the artwork and T-shirt template that participants could use in their designs. Over 2,000 original designs featuring the Honest Foods logo were submitted to the campaign and shared across the Internet.

For participants that aren’t familiar with Photoshop or other photo-editing software, they may find this type of campaign difficult and the number of creators in your campaign may be smaller than what you expected. As a result, design campaigns are generally medium to high barrier to entry. A good rule of thumb is to provide the artwork that artists can build upon and be clear with how participants can and cannot use your logo.

Video Campaigns

Video campaigns are entertaining but just like design campaigns, they are also high barrier to entry campaigns as it requires basic video editing skills.

If your target audience isn’t experienced with video-editing, you may find yourself with only a handful of entries. However, if you do find the right audience, you can make the campaign easier by providing the creative assets .

Mixed Media

Mixed Media campaigns are perfect when you want a mix of UGC and want to open your social media campaign to a broad audience that way anyone can participate. You can even drive more engagement to a mixed media campaign if you offer a prize for each medium (i.e. best photo, blog, design, video, etc.).

Need Ideas?

Still not sure how to get started or which type suits your company? Below is a list of companies that sponsor social media campaigns:

[Image Sources: Xanetia, illuminator999, Striatic, Diego Cupolo]

Are Your Customers Ready for Social Media?

Stephanie Garcia — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:35:58 +0000

Launching the first social media campaign for your company can be intimidating. With so many ways to engage consumers online (blogs, podcasts, social networks, Twitter, etc.), the feeling of anxiety is inevitable. You know it’s important to get involved in social media, but where do you begin?

First, understand who is online and what they’re doing. Participation in social media can differ among men and women and every demographic you can think of. For example, teens and Gen Y are more open to seeking entertainment online through video-sharing websites such as YouTube than older generations and are more likely to download their favorite songs^[1].

With this information, how do you decide between launching a social network and adding a review system to your website? Which medium will your customers flock to?

To understand what your customers are ready for, I recommend using Forrester’s Social Technographics® Profile tool available here. Based on Forrester’s survey data, you can research how participation in the groundswell varies among different groups of consumers not only in North America but globally as well.

The next steps in planning your social media campaign are to define your objectives, create a strategy, and then identify the appropriate technology to launch your campaign. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it’s covered in Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. This book is a definite must read before starting any social media campaign. In fact, if your CEO or VP of Marketing hasn’t read it yet, grab a copy for them.

Create a Forrester’s Social Technographics Profile Tool

To create a Social Technographics Profile^[2], first access the tool here. Then select the appropriate age range, country, and gender and a profile will be created. Unfortunately, the tool doesn’t allow you to export your graph. If you’d like more information, you can contact their sales team.

Social Media Strategy: Incorporating Forrester’s Social Technographics Profile

You’ve recently launched a social media campaign that asks consumers to submit a video of why they would love to win a $5,000 shopping spree at your store. While the campaign is open to participants ages 18 and older, you’re curious as to why majority of the videos submitted are created by women ages 18 – 24 versus your actual target audience of women ages 35 – 44.

Using Forrester’s Social Technographics Profile we can compare how each demographic participates in the groundswell^[3] [Technically, you should have created your target audience profile before launching your campaign to decide which type of social media campaign you should use but just in case you haven’t, you can still leverage the tool.]

Fig. 1.1 Females Ages 18 – 24 in the US.

Fig. 1.2 Females Ages 35– 44 in the US.

Based on the profiles above, we see that females ages 18 – 24 are more likely to be Creators online versus their counterparts. So while the majority of the Creators in your social media campaign may be from a different demographic, your target audience can still participate in the campaign as Critics and Spectators. It’ll be a good idea to analyze the reviews and ratings in the campaign as this is where your target is most likely to participate.

So before you launch your next social media campaign, be sure to research what your customers are ready for. I hope you found this information useful when planning your next social media campaign. If you have other steps in your planning process, please feel free to share.

[Image: Who Participates and What People Are Doing Online]

[Slideshare: Social Technographics Explained]

http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/generations-online-use-internet-differently-8145/
Data comes from the following surveys:
- US: Forrester’s North American Media & Marketing Online Survey, Q2 2008, 5,002 respondents.
- Canada: Forrester’s North American Technographics Benchmark Survey, Q1, 2008, 61,033 respondents.
- Europe: Forrester’s European Technographics Benchmark Survey, Q2 2008, 25,443 respondents.
- Asia Pacific: Forrester’s Asia Pacific Technographics Survey, Q1 2008, 7,636 respondents.
- Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008.

Promote Your Top 100 Tweeps

Stephanie Garcia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:11:34 +0000

Looking for a great way to promote your fans on Twitter or a unique gift for your Top 100 Tweeps? Then you should check out Twitter Mosaic.

Walter Higgins, founder and CEO of Sxoop Technologies, created the Twitter Mosaic tool which lets you create a mosaic of all your followers or friends on Twitter.

Simply enter your Twitter user name and choose what type of mosaic you’d like to create (followers or friends) and in seconds, you’ll receive an HTML code that you can add to your site or blog post to promote your tweeps. The Twitter Mosaic also gives you the ability to remove default Twitter avatars from your mosaic.

Now the fun part…

After you’ve created your Twitter mosaic, you can pimp your Top 100 Tweeps at Zazzle.com with Walter’s two products:

1. On a T-Shirt.

Choose a shirt design for men, women, kids and even babies (prices vary by color and shirt design). You can keep a T-shirt for yourself or if you have room in your marketing budget, you can take advantage of the bulk discounts and send a T-Shirt to all of your tweeps.

2. On a Coffee Mug.

Not in the mood to deal with shirt sizes? Not a problem. Choose a Twitter coffee mug, stein, or commuter mug for tweeps on the go.

And that’s it — pretty easy huh? Got any other idea on how to promote your tweeps?

This Week’s Highlights

A Gift For The Ultimate iPhone Addict

Stephanie Garcia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:05:02 +0000

Now you can have iPhone coasters in your home thanks to the guys at Meninos. For $60, you get all sixteen standard apps that come with the Apple iPhone. Unfortunately, that means no Twitter app coaster — sorry folks.

Personally, we don’t use coasters around our apartment but that doesn’t mean I don’t want these. Instead of using these as coasters, I’d rather turn them into magnets and have them posted on our refrigerator.

(Photo Credit: Junnn)

Plurk From Your iPhone

Plurk From Your iPhone

Stephanie Garcia — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:56:47 +0000

Plurk is a micro-blogging service that allows you to send and receive updates ( “plurks”) in a timeline view. What’s different about Plurk from all other micro-blogging platforms is that when you start a Plurk, all replies are kept in that single thread making it easier to follow and view both sides of a conversation. No need to search hashtags or search specific keywords/usernames in order to follow a conversation—Plurk threads allow users to interact with one another and reply to each other’s comments on one page. Plurk also lets users express how they feel with verbs and playful emoticons. And now there’s a Plurk application available to both iPhone and iPod touch users at no cost thanks to Ryan Lim. (Thanks Ryan Lim — you’re cool. )

With the Plurk app, you can view your timeline, read and respond to plurks, send and receive public or private plurks, and view profiles. You can add emoticons to your plurks as well thanks to the emoticon hints. The only feature missing is the the horizontal timeline view which honestly isn’t a problem for me.

So if you’re already a Plurk fanatic and have an iPhone or iPod touch, check out the new Plurk app and let me know what you think. And don’t forget to add me too: http://www.plurk.com/heystephanie

Interested in Plurk but don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch? No worries, you can access Plurk from their mobile site at http://www.plurk.com/m/login.

E-Bestsellers and More From Your Local Library

Stephanie Garcia — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:53:48 +0000

If you’re like me, you love walking down the aisles of your local bookstore to see what new audiobooks are on the shelves. By the time you’re done walking up and down your favorite aisle, whether it be Business & Marketing, Romance, or Self-Improvement, you look down at your hands and realize you’ve grabbed five audiobooks — each roughly worth $25.00.

You end up purchasing the audiobook that fits within your budget and leave the others to be re-shelved. “Next time,” you tell yourself and the running list of audiobooks you’ve logged in your memory to purchase grows longer.

What if I told you that you could borrow audio best-sellers and other goodies from your local library—for free?

All you need is a library card from your public library. You can browse and search hundreds of great titles and download them to your computer, transfer them to a portable device, or burn onto a CD for your listening pleasure anywhere, anytime.

Imagine my surprise when I logged onto the San Diego County Library site and discovered their large selection of downloadable audiobooks in both WMA and MP3 formats—I literally freaked out. I whipped out my library card and checked out all of the audiobooks I had always wanted.

The process was simple and may differ from your local library so be sure to see what requirements you need in order to take advantage of this opportunity.

Step 1: Download & Install the OverDrive Media Console™ software (FREE)

The OverDrive Media Console is available for both Windows® and Mac® users.

Step 2: Register Free Software

Before you can start the check out process, you’ll need to register the OverDrive Media Console software. Don’t worry, you’ll only need to do this once.

Step 3: Checkout, Download & Enjoy.

Now you can search the library database for your favorite audio books and other downloadable content. When you decide on a title of interest, simply add it to your digital cart to checkout.

You will never accrue late fees with titles you download from this website. At the end of the loan period, titles will expire and be automatically ‘returned’ to the library. At this time, you can delete the expired file(s) from your machine. – San Diego Public Library

So what are you waiting for? Search for libraries using OverDrive’s service here.

(Photo Credit: a glitch)

Lose Weight With Web 2.0

Stephanie Garcia — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:51:00 +0000

It’s 2009 and you’ve made a couple of New Year’s resolutions. And if you’re like most “resolutioners” – your number one resolution is to lose weight (myself included ).

Great — so what social media tools or communities are out there that can help us meet this goal?

Meet TheDailyPlate.com

The Daily Plate (TDP) allows you to search more than 502,000 food items for calorie counts, total carbs, fat, and protein so you can track what you’re eating. What’s great about this search function is that when you search for a certain food, TDP also provides healthy alternatives with fewer calories and reviews made by other members. You can even log what you’ve eaten in a free food diary that you can access online, through their mobile site, or via the LiveStrong iPhone application (my favorite iPhone app) which is available for free for a limited time.

Once you’ve registered at TDP, it’s easy to get started. Simply type a food item in the search box and add the item to your daily plate. TDP will calculate your daily calories automatically. You can even track your daily activites (i.e. running, walk, etc.) and log the calories you burn each day.

So if you’re serious about keeping your resolution to lose weight, check out The Daily Plate and see what they have to offer and don’t forget – it’s FREE.

What other web 2.0 tools are you using to meet your New Year’s resolutions?

Splitweet Is Perfect For Twitter Power Users

Stephanie Garcia — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:31:54 +0000

Earlier this year, I wrote about Matt, a web application built by the Carsonified team, to solve the problem of posting to multiple Twitter accounts. Matt was useful in that I didn’t have to log into each of my accounts separately. However, if I wanted to view tweets from individuals I was following via both accounts, I would still have to log into each account individually. The same rule applies if I wanted to see who replied to my tweets.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could view all of your friend’s tweets and replies on multiple accounts on just one application?

Will was thinking the same thing as well and asked me earlier this year…

“Out of all the twitter clients I’ve been browsing through, a lot of the same features of being able to post to multiple places at once for example. Nothing that I’ve seen so far does this in combination with being able to see the tweets from multiple accounts; have you come across anything like this yet?”

At the time, I didn’t know of any application that did just that until now. Thanks to Problogger’s tweet this afternoon, I found out about Splitweet. It’s the perfect multi-account Twitter management and brand monitor for Twitter power users.

All your accounts, one place.

All you have to do is create an account then add your Twitter accounts. In a matter of seconds you’ll start to see tweets from the people that you’re following.

Follow your contacts’ tweets easily.

Each tweet is color coded to reflect which account you’re following them under.

Monitorize your brand & reply.

You can even monitor your brand with Splitweet. Simply enter the brand name on your profile settings and hit save, and you’ll start to see mentions of your brand pop up and you can reply directly from the UI.

Overall, it’s a great application for individuals that manage multiple accounts and want more features. It’d be even better if it tracked how many people clicked on a link you twittered like Tweetburner. I wonder how long that will take to develop.

In the meantime, have fun Twittering and don’t forget to add me as a friend if you haven’t done so already.