In October 2011, Rotaract Australia ran an awareness campaign through the social media site Facebook. The campaign ran for a week and involved more than 200 Rotaractors from around Australia and across the globe! The objective of the campaign was to create awareness about Rotaract with an eye-catching profile picture, several statements that demonstrate opportunities in Rotaract, and a video that provides general information about Rotaract. Although not directly targeting membership, the campaign was aimed at friends and family to get them interested and asking questions about Rotaract. For the awareness campaign, Rotaractors updated their profile pictures with the image below.
Additionally, Rotaractors posted an informational video about Rotaract on their walls, called ‘Rotaract: What’s the Go?’ which can be located here. This video provides a great basic insight into Rotaract and has been critical in driving membership and promotion online.
Response
To guide Rotaractors through the campaign, an event was created on Facebook. Within 24 hours, more than 65 Rotaractors were ‘attending’, and 222 people by the end of the campaign! Throughout the week, we received many compliments and testimonials, including that from a PDRR in Perth, who said that his Rotary District had quickly picked up on the idea and they loved it.
Several comments were also posted on the wall highlighting the interest generated from the campaign, with several new members coming on board. One big win for Rotaract was to drive home the message of the benefits and opportunities within the organisation, resulting in bringing an ex-Rotaractor back to our community!There were also numerous comments reflecting the excitement of taking Rotaract Australia’s work to an international status, as well as the fact that some people integrated their own personal experiences into their statuses to really drive the message home.
Survey results
Following the campaign, a survey was conducted of 77 participants of the campaign. Five of the respondents are international based Rotaractors, whilst there was a good spread of Rotaractors from Districts across Australia
The survey showed that 39% of Rotaractors became aware of the campaign through a Facebook event invite, showing the power of social media. 15 Rotaractors found out through email, 14 from attending the Australian Rotaract Conference, and 12 by word of mouth.The campaign required members to update their status each day for seven days. However, the results show that more than half of the respondents updated their statuses 5 times or less during the week. This is further justified by several comments that called for the campaign to be shorter, or less frequent. Furthermore, more than half stated that they updated their statuses during the week with comments not relating to the campaign.A key outcome was that 55% of those surveyed said that non-Rotaract friends ‘liked’ their status at least once during the week. Additionally to this, 9 Rotaractors received an expression of interest from family or friends.
So, should we run another campaign?
Pleasingly, nearly everyone said would participate if another Rotaract campaign were to be run again. However, there were several stand out comments relating to the campaign that should be taken into consideration next time:
- Include more general information about Rotaract on the website, including reasons to join
- Link to different websites/pages relevant to the theme of each days’ status
- Many people liked the profile picture, however there were comments suggesting that a different picture is used next time
- Status updates to occur less frequently, either two or three times during a week, or once per week over 6 weeks. Many people suggested that 7 days of status updates was a bombardment or spamming of their friends
- To undertake a more subtle campaign, utilising a range of pictures and/or videos
- Cover information on how to join as well as any Rotaract achievements and projects that are currently being undertaken
- Shorter, more concise statuses that are provocative and less forceful
- Include other social media, such as Twitter, Flickr and YouTube
In summary, the Rotaract Australia Facebook Awareness Campaign was highly successful with over 220 participants across Australia and the world. There are several key learnings to ensure that the campaign is bigger and better next time around. The average Facebook user has 130 friends, meaning this campaign had more than 28,000 potential connections! That’s one good reason to keep advertising our brand using social media!
DRR Jake Weragoda
PP Sally Hetherington
