USA TODAY: How We Made Charity Cooler Than Justin Bieber — Live from BlogWell

Coverage of this session by Kira Newman of Social Matchbox. Check out her blog and follow her on Twitter.

1:30 — SocialMedia.org’s Kurt Vanderah introduces USA TODAY’s Social Media Analyst, Glenna DeRoy.

1:32 — I’m going to talk about What America Wants, a Twitter campaign of USA TODAY. It was a way to differentiate us from our competition as a company who cares about real people. Launched in March 2010.

1:34 — By taking the campaign social, we wanted to deliver our message to a new audience. Social media is “where America hangs out.”

1:35 — It never got difficult for the end user. All they had to do was tweet. The charity that received the most tweets got a full-page ad. So the idea was simple.

1:36 — We got Legal involved from the beginning to prevent any problems.

1:36 — It was not enough to reach a large audience. We had to reach the right audience, who would spread our message far and wide.

1:37 — How much did it cost? $2,500, using radian6. We had to be cost-effective.

1:38 — Do not do this alone. I once had to go through tweets manually, and it was a nightmare.

1:39 — We wanted it to be a grassroots campaign that gave a small charity exposure. Celebrities tweeted too, but they just helped spread the message even further.

1:40 — By the numbers: 4 days, 60,000 mentions, 500 charities mentioned, #AmericaWants trended 3 times (once kicked Justin Bieber off the trending topics list). Winner: To Write Love on Her Arms won a full-page ad.

1:41 — The campaign was the perfect length. It wasn’t so short that it had no time to build, and it wasn’t so long that people got fatigued with it.

1:42 — Afterward, we took out a full-page ad with a list of the top 100 charities and thanking America for participating.

1:43 — What we accomplished: publicity (including on Mashable), lots of goodwill in the community, people got the message.

1:44 — Instead of *saying* our message with ads, we *showed* it with this campaign.

1:44 — Why it worked: Easy to participate, everyone has a charity they believe in, Twitter is a great platform.

1:45 — What we learned: Keep it simple, pick a valuable incentive for participants, reach out to your contacts to spread the word.

Q&A

Q: How did you decide on 4 days and what is your advice for picking a time frame?

A: It took off on the 3rd day and continued to grow on the 4th day. When you go for a week, it starts to lose steam; people want to know who won. We probably could have done a 5th day. I would say 4 or 5 days is perfect.

Q: 1. What was your lead time before you launched the campaign? 2. Did you consider that the winning nonprofit would not have wanted an ad in your paper?

A: 2. We wanted a smaller charity to win. To Write Love on Her Arms was very much behind the campaign, and they helped promote it. That’s why we focused on smaller charities, who would be grateful for the publicity. 1. The larger campaign was in the works for months.

Q: What type of responses were you sending out to tweets?

A: Participants had to use the specific phrase we gave them. We did reach out when people used the wrong phrase accidentally so they could fix their tweets and get counted.

Q: Was their any concern about PETA (the runner up) coming out on top?

A: I’m not sure (someone else handled it). There probably were discussions about it.

Q: Why did you decide to expand it to 3 prizes?

A: It was a last-minute decision on our part (running quarter-page ads). The reality of our business is that ad space is plentiful at the moment. It was a way to show appreciation for everyone who participated.