NonProfit PR Awards: Social Media

Campaign: Defense Media Activity—The Pentagon Channel

Winner: The Defense Media Activity—Alexandria

The Defense Media Activity-Alexandria realized that The Pentagon Channel, AFPS and Emerging Media possessed the platforms needed to cross-promote stories that would reach its 18-35 demographic. Leveraging social media was a perfect solution.

To execute DMA-Alexandria’s social media plan, the firm needed to change how it ran the day-to-day operations of its Content Management Center. Because the majority of Web content is provided by AFPS and the Pentagon Channel, DMA-Alexandria strategized that the best way to reach its target audience was to move the content across multiple social media platforms.

To support this push into the social media space, DMA-Alexandria created accounts for The Pentagon Channel and AFPS on Facebook and Twitter; it also created podcasts and blogs.

And instead of creating new positions for staff, Pentagon Channel journalists are now required to repurpose stories for social media sites. Although this does require more time and re-training, it does help to create more content with little effort.

As a result of the new social media model, DMA-Alexandria now believes it is better equipped to cover events affecting the Department of Defense.

Honorable Mentions:

Comcast Washington State: Comcast Voluntweep All about Non-Profits—After witnessing the lack of nonprofits using social media to the fullest, Comcast Washington State decided to hold the Voluntweep—a conference aimed at training nonprofit executives in the area of social media, reaching 230+ nonprofit execs thus far.

Southern Festival of Books/Hall Strategies: Extra! Extra! Tweet All About It!—In July 2009, the Southern Festival of Books held its first ever Twitter contest, in which daily clues about the authors were tweeted, and followers had the opportunity to guess who correctly fit the clue.

Coalition to Support Medical Research: ResearchMeansHope.org—ResarchMeansHope.org was created to increase government funding for medical research. As of September 2009, Congress had received 3,497 e-mails and letters sent through the Web site, generating significant support through social media.

The California Endowment: CalConnect Social Networking Site—After researching popular social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Ning, California Living 2.0 created its own social media site, which connects 14 impoverished and underserved California communities with health experts, ensuring that the youth population is healthy and safe.

November 9, 2009