Each month, members from our chapter participate in the PRSSA National Twitter Chat. The theme varies month to month, but chats always revolve around an important aspect of public relations and general professionalism. Here are some of the best tweets from this semester’s PRSSA National Twitter Chats, from our very own members. April: “Following Through with the Internship Hunt”/Interviews I do this a lot! It’s amazing what you think of on the fly. Also in April, PRSSA participated in a tweet-off with VT Prism. Here’s a humorous interpretation on how Snuggie could boost their sales from Melanie: February: Branding Here are some awesome tweets from our very own chapter president! January: “What Membership Services Can Do” December: “Do it the WRITE Way” We had several members participate in this chat! I guess we all love writing. As you can see, our members love participating in PRSSA Twitter chats. We make it a competition to have a new record number of members participating each time and try to get retweeted by PRSSA National. Follow @VTPRSSA and @PRSSANational for information on when chats are held and what the topic is. Get tweeting and start a conversation with PRSSA members around the country.
Edited by Melanie Ford, Webmaster and Editor-in-Chief 2013-2014
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“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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