Me and Viral Marketing, Part Deux
In my post yesterday, I talked about how I used the Purpuro's concept of viral marketing in a student government election that I was apart of. As per DelaBlogger's request, I am going to talk about why and how you would even want to use a website for such a small scale election.
At GW, student government elections are a yearly ritual that bring all of the crazies out of the woodwork. As a crazy person in my own right who got into the fray of a student body Presidential election, I knew that I had to have a website that did a few things:
- Gave students more information about my campaign
- Reinforced the message that I was campaigning as a non-hack student government outsider
- Gave my campaign an inexpensive way to promote itself
With all of this in mind, my web team (aka one of my friends who was willing to work for beer) was set on creating a site that had a certain visual appeal that would reinforce the outsider message. Although he had experience with developing nicer websites, I wanted it to look kind of sloppy and rag-tag.
Once it was set-up, I had all of my friends and their friends and their friends post a link to the sites on their IM screenname. Since college students rarely attend class and sit in their dorms rooms downloading free music and checking IM's all day, we all though that this would be an effective way to get the word out and for people who were interested to take a look at some of the things that I stood for. The site was also promoted through a listserve of about 200 people whose emails I had collected throughout my time as an undergrad. We also had the website on all posters, handouts and told people to visit through word of mouth. While I have no count as to how many people saw the site, I did get comments from people about getting endorsed by the number 5. Overall, the website ended up being an effective way to give people more information (persuasion) as well as creating a new opportunity to market my candidacy, yellow trucker hats and all.
At GW, student government elections are a yearly ritual that bring all of the crazies out of the woodwork. As a crazy person in my own right who got into the fray of a student body Presidential election, I knew that I had to have a website that did a few things:
- Gave students more information about my campaign
- Reinforced the message that I was campaigning as a non-hack student government outsider
- Gave my campaign an inexpensive way to promote itself
With all of this in mind, my web team (aka one of my friends who was willing to work for beer) was set on creating a site that had a certain visual appeal that would reinforce the outsider message. Although he had experience with developing nicer websites, I wanted it to look kind of sloppy and rag-tag.
Once it was set-up, I had all of my friends and their friends and their friends post a link to the sites on their IM screenname. Since college students rarely attend class and sit in their dorms rooms downloading free music and checking IM's all day, we all though that this would be an effective way to get the word out and for people who were interested to take a look at some of the things that I stood for. The site was also promoted through a listserve of about 200 people whose emails I had collected throughout my time as an undergrad. We also had the website on all posters, handouts and told people to visit through word of mouth. While I have no count as to how many people saw the site, I did get comments from people about getting endorsed by the number 5. Overall, the website ended up being an effective way to give people more information (persuasion) as well as creating a new opportunity to market my candidacy, yellow trucker hats and all.
1 Comments:
Thanks for the follow up, Snack Lover. That sounds like a great strategy for that audience. It is too bad you didn't have site statistics to see how many people actually viewed the site.
This is also a good example of how the "rules" don't always apply. For instance, since you were running as the anti-candidate, it would have been inappropriate for you to have a serious photo of yourself on the site.
FYI - In the end, aren't we all just working for beer?
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