“Fancred is a sports-focused social network for fans to connect and share content and opinions about their favorite teams and sports. It’s a free app where you can post articles, gifs, photos, comments, and trash talk with other fans.” This excerpt, taken from the Fancred Community Leader Playbook, outlines the company’s goals and vision. The site was founded by Hossein Kash Razzaghi, a Mississippi State University graduate. Razzaghi moved north after graduation and discovered he no longer had a fan base to talk about his beloved Bulldog’s sports with. Together with a small team of co-workers, he launched the Fancred iPhone application in August 2012. Since then, the company has expanded to a website version. So the question is: how did they do it? How, in a digital world dominated by social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, did Fancred break through and receive over 551 ratings on iTunes, averaging 5/5 stars? Simple – they gave the people what they wanted: strictly sports. Fancred’s vision is “to be the single point of access to your life as a sports fan.” Their network allows sports fans to communicate, share, and experience sports with other die-hard fans without having to sift through friend’s newborn baby pictures on Facebook and “OMG I <3 Justin Bieber” tweets on Twitter. Here are some features that have made Fancred such a hit: Accountability – Fancred requires users to register through Facebook, thereby authenticating the user’s identity. This makes individuals accountable for the content that they post and the ways in which they interact with other users. Give Incentive – The “Fancred Score” is a genius tool that the site uses to measure how active users are. However, the score is not based on how many times a user posts; it is used to separate the true fans from the bandwagon fans. A complex algorithm that measures things including knowledge of sports, involvement in team communities (i.e. your presence in each and overall fandom, calculates the score. The Fancred Score tool is successful because it gives competitive people something to vie for, but also inevitably increases users’ presence in the site. Go Straight to the Source – College sports are a huge demographic when it comes to online communities. To help engage them, Fancred has Community Leaders at over 75 colleges across the nation, a number that is expanding every school semester. These Community Leaders are responsible for posting live updates of their school’s games, pictures, and engaging their school’s community in sports-related discussions. In turn, the community leaders receive real-world experience and school credits for an internship. Guerilla Marketing – Awareness. The Internet has grown to colossal size, making it harder for potential users to stumble upon sites. Guerilla Marketing tactics such as writing the site’s URL in giant letters across a classroom chalk board, posting cards all over campus, and, my personal favorite: eccentric displays of Fancred affection in the form of their mascots. Give Users a Goal – Unlike many other new sites that smother users with free shirts and logo-clad items, Fancred has made these items a prize. You cannot buy them; they have to be won. Fancred employees and community leaders hold “caption this picture” and “post the best X, Y, Z” competitions and offer Fancred shirts, stickers, and other coveted “cred-swag” as prizes. From its start as a mobile phone application to its expansion to a website format, Fancred is a company to be admired and studied for its clever growth tactics. Edited by Melanie Ford, Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief 2013-2014
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Are you detail-oriented, organized and able to work under pressure? You may be interested in using your public relations skills to be a special event planner. PR and event planning naturally go hand-in-hand; companies and organizations hold special events to generate awareness and excitement about their causes, products, projects or ideas. To take an event to the next level, corporate PR is an essential component of ensuring that there’s enough attendance and media attention. Using PR in event planning goes beyond making a guest list and decorating; it’s a strategic process that requires great attention to detail. Just as a well-planned, highly publicized event can bring funds and attention to your company, a poorly organized one reflects badly on you. I am on the Fundraising Committee for Virginia Tech Relay for Life, the world’s #1 collegiate Relay that raises more than half a million dollars annually for the American Cancer Society. A big part of what makes VT Relay so successful is how we use PR to publicize our fundraising and recruitment events. Recently, from March 24-April 1, we held our annual “10 for 10” event. This is a huge push for VT Relay; we hold events and promotions for 10 days that each aim to raise $10,000 for the ACS. Here are some tips I picked up while helping to plan 10 for 10. Hopefully, you can use some of these strategies to bring PR into your future event planning.
For more tips on how to incorporate PR into your event planning, specifically via social media, check out this article and infographic on Our Social Times. Relay for Life of Virginia Tech takes place on Friday, April 25, 2014 at 5 p.m. on the Drillfield. For more information, visit their website here. Edited by Melanie Ford, Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief 2013-2014 |
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