Student Social Networking Site Builds Loyalty and Generates New Travelers

People to People Student Ambassador Programs -- the largest student travel organization in the country -- provides educational opportunities for K-12 students in to travel to foreign countries to learn about their histories, governments, and cultures. The programs enjoy a 98% satisfaction rating among participants, but suffer from extremely low awareness.

Challenge:
Since students must be nominated and accepted into the program, the organization counts on the community and its alumni to nominate outstanding candidates. The company's lack of awareness hinders the search for high-achieving students who can take advantage of this opportunity.

Objectives for The Well:
* Increase alumni involvement
* Encourage alumni to nominate worthy students
* Provide a destination where prospective students and their families could go to learn about/apply to upcoming programs

Solution:
The Well created a social networking site (http://www.ptpalumni.org) where alumni were invited to create profiles and share their experiences on the People to People programs. The website was feature-rich, enabling students to blog, post messages, carry on real-time chats, upload pictures and songs, produce customized slide shows, create their own forums and groups, and more.

The entire site was built in less than one month as The Well took advantage of freeware and "Mash-Up" technology -- completing the project 80% below the cost of a similar site built from scratch.

Results:
Within a month, thousands of alumni were populating the site and building their own communities. A simple "Nominate a Worthy Student" button on the home page generated enough new student names to pay for the entire effort. In addition, the online destination has provided incredible marketing research results, as People to People and The Well monitor the online public conversations where students talk extensively about likes and dislikes of the programs. The site is also becoming a destination for high-achieving students looking for like-minded individuals. It's also clear that this niche social networking site will become its own asset for the company and deliver a value 10x the original investment.

Credit Information
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Client: Ambassadors Group Inc.
Agency: The Well Advertising, Inc.
Budget: $35,000
Date of Campaign: Began 08/01/06 - Ongoing
Case Study URL: http://www.ptpalumni.org/