The New Jersey State Library partnered with INFOLINK to sponsor the Super Librarian Video and Comic Contest as a replicable model that libraries could use to seek out teen influencers. The goal was to create a low cost campaign utilizing free or minimally priced web 2.0 tools to allow “influencers” in the teen community to spread a positive message about libraries.
The contest announcement was accomplished through the efforts of local libraries inviting kids to create a video or comic. We used iWeb, YouTube and Blogger to create an online presence. The online voting was conducted with PollDaddy. The public voted for two winners, one for video and one for the comic. Winners received a MP3 video player.
A minimal amount of money was spent on bookmarks and posters to announce the contest but the voting segment was strictly WOM. While we only had a little over 40 submissions, the voting process was an overwhelming success with over 17,000 votes cast. What was even more exciting was that most of the votes came from a few “influencers” who engaged their friends, family and community members to go to the Web site and vote. One young women told us that her pastor actually addressed the congregation to tell them to go to the website to vote!
Libraries have traditionally run juried contests. By departing from that model and adopting open polling we were able to discover “influencers” from the teen community. Since we used low cost and free online programs, this is a model that could be replicated by any non-profit or small business looking to recruit influencers to help them spread the word about their organizations making this an outstanding WOM campaign.
Client: New Jersey State Library
Agency: N/A
Budget: Under $10,000
Date of Campaign: Ended January, 2008
Case Study URL: http://web.mac.com/ndowd/iWeb/Comic%20Contest/Contest%20submissions.html
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