Putting out a challenge; how do I spread the word?

[tirediron]

Having recently partnered with Wounded Warriors Canada for my Veteran's Portrait Project, I've come up with a lofty goal: I want to put out a challenge to every Canadian photographer that I can reach to create at least one portrait for a Canadian Veteran. My question is: How best to do that? It's clearly something for which social media is ideally suited, but... I'm a social media neophyte at best, and bumbling incompetent on average.

Facebook has a number of options, "Create an Event", "Create an Offer", etc...but I'm unsure of whether one or any of those will offer any advantage over a regular facebook post, and more importantly, how to get the most traction.

Thoughts?

 

[KmH]

Boy. I'll tell ya. It's a real challenge.
For me it's getting the word out about the local astronomy club's public nights every Friday night April 21 through October 27 this year.
Social media, newspaper Community Events online pages, local Convention and Visitors bureau's online calendar and electronic signs, the club's web site, telling pretty much everyone I talk to as I'm out and about.

There are so many promotional options these days it's very harder to get any focus.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Are there any photographer organizations in your area? or any you can find in other provinces? Or any trade shows? maybe camera clubs? Any photography related art exhibits or events? If you find possibilities maybe following them for a bit then posting/sharing on their FB pages may work just as well as setting up a page - one thing could lead you to another.

I'm chair of a small nonprofit (related to local hockey) and we have our own page, but it prompts me all the time about paying to 'promote' a post (we don't, who has money to spend on that?? lol). Facebook made changes some time ago so that not everyone following your page will necessarily see every one of your posts. Of course someone can still go to your page and see it but it may not show up on people's news feeds. As far as I know anyway.

It has taken time for more and more people to eventually find us. If you set up a page then it seems like you still have to figure out how to get people to see it if you want to actively promote it. For our group, it's more related to local hockey history not local hockey events, so it's a page just for fun more than needing it to go out to people regularly.

Good luck with it John, it sounds like a great project.

 

[pixmedic]

i would go with traditional tried and true advertising.

 

[Derrel]

I would telephone a regional televison station, and pitch your challenge as a human interest story; get them to send out a crew (producer/reporter/camera man) and have them do a segment on the challenge; it sounds like a very worthy cause, and you can allow them to show some stills, maybe even arrange for you and a veteran to be shown during a portraiture session. If the segment is good (and two or three senior, white-haired vets might be very picturesque!) it's possible it might go trans-Canada and be seen in multiple markets, from BC to Saskatchewan to Ontario!

 

[tirediron]

Thanks guys (and Sharon! ) Good points, and Derrel, that's a great idea. I hadn't thought of contacting the local community events station, but I will do that.

 

[zombiesniper]

This is and excellent idea.
Since I just happen to live in an area where I may know a Vet or 2, I'll shoot some and help you spend the word.
Is this what the call is going to be about?

 

[Gary A.]

I strongly suggest to tie into a national Canadian Vet Non-Profit Group ... then do a nationwide marketing/publicity campaign for this worthy cause. This is not trivial nor easy ... but it is something worth pursuing.

 

[tirediron]

This is and excellent idea.
Since I just happen to live in an area where I may know a Vet or 2, I'll shoot some and help you spend the word.
Is this what the call is going to be about?

Yep!

 

[tirediron]

I strongly suggest to tie into a national Canadian Vet Non-Profit Group ... then do a nationwide marketing/publicity campaign for this worthy cause. This is not trivial nor easy ... but it is something worth pursuing.

That's where Wounded Warriors Canada comes in, BUT... I want to do as much of it as I can myself.

 

[zombiesniper]

I fly out Sunday to Halifax but I'll be back Thursday.
EDIT: We can talk tonight, tomorrow or after I get back.

 

[snowbear]

Billboard on the sides of moose? Short message printed on Tim Horton's coffee cups and Molson labels?
Good luck - it's certainly a worthy challenge. Maybe a short video that can be placed on YouTube and FB. Sometimes getting with a law enforcement or Fire/EMS (like FOP or IAFF) can get the word spread about such things - lot of vets go into those lines of work.

 

[tirediron]

I fly out Sunday to Halifax but I'll be back Thursday.
EDIT: We can talk tonight, tomorrow or after I get back.

I'll call you tomorrow!

 

[tirediron]

Billboard on the sides of moose? Short message printed on Tim Horton's coffee cups and Molson labels?
Good luck - it's certainly a worthy challenge. Maybe a short video that can be placed on YouTube and FB. Sometimes getting with a law enforcement or Fire/EMS (like FOP or IAFF) can get the word spread about such things - lot of vets go into those lines of work.

Good points! I'll call Ajax Rent-a-Moose tomorrow for some prices.

 

[TCampbell]

Social media posts get more traction if they include a graphic or image. You need a project "brand". People notice the image and click on the post. If there's no image - just informational text - they tend to not click on it and not-reshare it. You want as many people to re-share your project as possible.

And of course... what do you want people to do with all these images? Likely you'll need a project page or website that explains what you're looking for and how to submit their images to the project.

This page might be something that Wounded Warriors would host -- or it could be setup elsewhere (but hopefully they'd link to it so that anyone visiting their website for information would find your project site.)

You can also take advantage of the collection capabilities of existing photo sites such as 500px, Flickr, Google+, etc. such that people can post the images to their own page but add them to your group. That way people can join the group and watch the images start to appear. If I'm submitting images to a project, I'd like to be able to watch that project grow. If I submit to a black box -- and someone else presumably does something with these images but I don't see it -- then I'm less likely to be excited about participating in that project.

I actually dislike Facebook for these sorts of things. Facebook has no concept of a worthy cause. I've got a few non-profits which have Facebook pages. Once upon a time, you could get people to "like" your page and anytime you posted something on that page, it would show up in the stream of people who "like" you. Not anymore. TODAY Facebook has it in their mind that there are only two kinds of pages... personal pages that belong to an individual and only a single individual and "everything else". They want to monetize their product and so they sell promotion capabilities to businesses. So if I'm a restaurant and I want to advertise a dinner special, I can pay Facebook to promote my event or page and you pay to promote through based on the area of coverage. A restaurant or small business can pay to promote to just their own town and maybe even the neighboring towns. It's not too expensive. You, on the other hand, want to promote across the entire country. The problem with Facebook is that if you set up a project page there and people "like" your page, they still won't see posts from you because you aren't "paying" to promote. There's a series of settings that users can configure to insist that they "like" a page so much that they want to be notified of every single thing that is posted... but that's not the default and users have to go out of their way to enable it (Facebook makes it less obvious on purposes because if it was too easy then businesses wouldn't need to pay to promote.) Facebook has no concept of a non-profit charity. A non-profit has to pay to promote just like any commercial business would have to pay.

My astronomy club promotes events such as planetarium shows, club meetings, observing nights, and special events via MeetUp.com and a new neighborhood social app called NextDoor.com as well as Facebook and Twitter. We always ask people how they found us. Some people found us by just doing a Google search for something they're interested in and our page shows up ... but we seem to get the most traction from MeetUp and NextDoor... followed by general Google searches that found us. We get the LEAST number of people who found us via Facebook (it almost never happens that anyone found us on Facebook). We also have a Twitter feed and that gets a little traffic.

You're not quite the same because you don't have an event as in "be at this location on this day to participate in the event" -- you have more of a project that will last many months. However... if you are aware of any scheduled veterans events and those event planners think their participants would be interested in having their portraits made then you could create events where you encourage photographers to show up with gear and be prepared to offer portrait shots... or at least encourage photographers to distribute info to the local veterans (e.g. VFW halls, etc.) that the participating photographer would consider it their honor to give back to those who have served by doing a portrait shoot - complementary. Make it clear to the photographers who participate that this is not meant to be a money-making opportunity (but if that veteran or family member has a need for a photographer in the future... now they know someone they can call.)