1 / 10

Camp Laurelwood Reconnects

Camp Laurelwood Reconnects. Leveraging Social Media to Identify, Inform, and Engage Camp Alumni Rob Goldfarb, Camp Laurelwood November 11, 2011 . Background. Pre-Facebook, primary means of communicating with CLW alumni included email blasts, postal mail, listservs (such as Yahoo! groups)

oakes
Download Presentation

Camp Laurelwood Reconnects

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Camp Laurelwood Reconnects Leveraging Social Media to Identify, Inform, and Engage Camp Alumni Rob Goldfarb, Camp Laurelwood November 11, 2011

  2. Background Pre-Facebook, primary means of communicating with CLW alumni included email blasts, postal mail, listservs (such as Yahoo! groups) • Lists, email addresses aged very quickly. Very difficult and time-consuming to keep lists clean and up-to-date. • Often, with decreased deliverability, these channels became inefficient for alumni solicitation (postage, materials are expensive, dirty lists = poor response)

  3. Background Facebook’s fast growth provided CLW immediately seizable opportunities. • High alumni involvement on Facebook, active participants (1940s forward) • Multiple presences, such as: • Official Camp Laurelwood business page (1,000+ likes) • Camp Facebook group (900+ members) • Several unofficial alumni groups such as “Camp Laurelwood Old School” (many have 200+ members)

  4. Background • Facebook allows CLW to: • Communicate camp news and events, immediately. • Update its email lists efficiently (current alumni registration efforts yielded 300 names, plus years attended, camper/staff/board member indications) • Make immediate, urgent fundraising appeals. • Engage volunteers, set up campus visits. • Request content for, and sell copies of, its 75th anniversary illustrated “coffee table” book, camp year book, other merchandise.

  5. Background CLW developed other social media channels: • A wordpress.com blog site to promote the “coffee table” book (23,500+ page views). • Uplink site to submit large camp photo jpeg files. • Twitter accounts. • VodPod video feeds. • These channels are run by volunteers (not camp staff).

  6. Objectives CLW uses social media to: • Reestablish contact with eight generations of alumni. • Capture key alumni demographics (extremely useful for development) • Get alumni talking, sharing, reminiscing with each other.

  7. Objectives CLW uses social media to: • Raise funds, immediately and opportunistically. (Scholarship and other pressing needs.) • Secure significant alumni volunteerism. • And most important, boost camp enrollment.

  8. Strategies • Drive lots of great content. Multiple posts per week on Facebook pages, Wordpress site, etc. boosts awareness, encourages lots of alumni comments. • Reinforce CLW brand and tagline “Fun, Friends, Forever.” Get previous generations to relive their CLW fun and friendships, and encourage them to enroll their own kids or grandkids. Very effective. • Deploy rapidly (Hurricane Irene – posted immediate appeals for on-campus recovery help and donations). Very effective appeal.

  9. Strategies • Make it visual. Get alumni to send in classic photos, memorabilia. More than anything, visuals posted to Facebook generated the most comments. • Make it personal. Retell stories about classic camp events and leaders (camp mother story post generated hundreds of page views). • Relive the gloriously mundane. Post instant polls such as (what was your favorite camp dessert or canteen snack?). Generates lots of votes, great memories across all generations.

  10. Great Outcomes Reconnecting through social media allowed CLW to: • Identify and engage over 200 alumni immediately. • Drive a lot of content to promote CLW, increase enrollment, raise funds, sell merchandise, promote reunion events, etc. • Minimize, even eliminate marketing and postal expenses, and • Establish CLW alumni as a vibrant, connected community willing to support the camp’s future through volunteerism and sustained financial support.

More Related