E² Driving Momentum -recruit others to get the word out

E² is a restaurant and venue space in Pittsburg, PA that gained popularity over the years.  They gained popularity and press during a snow storm in 2010 known as the “Snowmaggedon” by serving hot soup (Stephen, 2015, Para. 2).  To expand and grow the business in 2012 they decided to raise funds by crowdsourcing to renovate the venue space. Kickstarter is the platform and the approach they chose to support their initiative. Kickstarter is different and effective because it creates a sense of urgency and time constraints of the campaign. They had 30 days to raise $17,000 dollars through Kickstarter and if they did not, then no fund from the platform would be donated (Stephen, 2015, Para. 3).  Earn it or lose it in short.

E²’s team did a great job of ramping up for the kick off of the online campaign. Connecting with PR and other center of influences. The first week they met 45% of their goal and quickly saw the fund sourcing slow down and start to flicker so to speak (Stephen, 2015, Para. 12). When reviewing their daily statistics of amounts donated per donor and comparing it to their incentives, the rewards were not compelling or effective motivators for people to donate larger amounts. With the exception of April 8^th, the average donations were less than $100 per donor. It looks like the t-shirt was one of the main incentives people received for donating, because the average did not fall under $50 and this was the main difference between donations under $50 and donations over $50. Also note that the average donation on April 8^th, was $237, and this was the day the least amount of people donated, 5 peoples. While the team should still keep posting they need to do more than just posting. I recommend they change their rewards, how someone is rewarded, and create a game of tag (Stephen, 2015, Para. 12-13).

Rewards. Someone is more likely to take a survey if the surveyor promises to donate to a charity (Johnston, 2016, Para. 12 ). With the popularity they gained from the soup served during the blizzard, they should incentivize with a hot meal or bowl of soup donated to a shelter in the towns of the donors.  In survey’s or getting people to participate.  Survey Gizmo’s insights about survey participation tell us what motivates people to engage and I think they can be relevant with social media engagement as well

They identified five things that motivate respondents as follows:

• Share the results
• Identify other people who care about the results
• Send a reminder
• Charitable giving
• Tangible incentives do work (Johnston, 2016, Para. 12 ).

The key here is to get this to broadcast news and keep a tally of how many people will be getting a hot meal, served over a year or some time span.  They should also reach out to anyone who benefited or engaged with them in the blizzard.  They can also include soup bowls created with the name of the donors from the campaign and serve soup in the restaurant in these bowls. The number of names will symbolize the number of people provided a meal. Remember to reference people served, not meals served as this tugs on heart strings. I recommend keeping the t-shirts to help build brand awareness afterwards for all donors.

How to receive a reward. At this point, they would not be able to take the donation incentives off the table, but it doesn’t seem to be what’s motivating people to donate anyway. I recommend they donate a hot meal or bowl of soup to a shelter of their choice for every person that they tag in a post that is curated by E2 and posted by someone else.   This philanthropic incentive is not based on how much is pledged but rather how many people that a person tags in the post on their own timeline. Additionally, it would be beneficial when someone donates, that they come down to the location get a t-shirt and take a photo with the t-shirt on, enjoying a bowl of soup if they wish and then post and tag away online. The ask here is a broad post and can be advertised on Facebook.

Game of tag. In a private message via messenger, E2 should ask each person to post and tag people as indicated above. To help people, they should curate a message with the voice of the person posting to their friends and tagging them, along with a picture.  As E2 gets access to new people from tagging they can repeat the process with each person individually via messenger. The result will be a snow ball effect and gain attention from other news sources for their philanthropic efforts.  Remember the ice-bucket challenge when someone would get tagged (ALS, 2014, Para. 2). This is a similar concept of recruiting advocates and engaging the audience.

In summary, the key to gaining momentum in social media marketing quickly is to recruit others to get the word out. It is also important to research what motivates people before choosing incentives. Finally, playing on the heartstrings of people is the trick in marketing. People are moved by helping, and when your brand leads by example, the rest will follow.

References

Johnston, B. (March 28^th, 2016). Increasing survey response rates. Retrieved from https://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-blog/increasing-survey-response-rates/  September 8^th, 2017.

Stephen, A.  (2015).E2 Kickstarter Project. Stukent Inc. Retrieved from Stukent.com on September 8^th, 2017.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.alsa.org/about-us/ice-bucket-challenge-faq.html on September 8th, 2017.