The Homelessness Marathon is an annual, nationwide broadcast to over 125 radio and TV stations. The purpose of this year's broadcast, held February 23-24, 2011, is to raise awareness about the problem of homelessness in the U.S. by allowing homeless people to directly participate in the marathon.
Publicity:
With limited resources the Homelessness Marathon staff produce a 14-hour live radio show and publicize the show on their website. To help extend promotion to new media, I quickly built up the following for their Facebook Page, Twitter feed, and YouTube channel.
The Facebook Page had been a second thought in their promotion efforts by connecting an automated news feed that provided timely information about current events impacting homeless people. The Facebook Page would better promote the radio broadcast by using Facebook a personal, conversational approach. We disconnected the news feed and built the Page from 80 to over 670 fans in five weeks. The Twitter feed was new and has 300 followers after five weeks.
Note: Organizers removed the Twitter and Facebook accounts after the 2011 broadcast. The accounts will be re-established for the 2012 broadcast.
Facebook - A simple approach to build a large number of fans quickly: cross-post news and comments from homeless advocates and individuals, as well as "@ tag" radio and TV stations airing the broadcast. Additional sources of news and information included the website, Twitter, and the director's commentary. Finally, a low-cost ($6 per day) advertisement was used. The advertisement approach was simple: Create a "landing page" and direct clicks from the advertisement to the landing page (see below for image).
Twitter - The approach to build a following here was to follow as many homeless advocacy organizations, homeless shelters, housing organizations, and poverty relief groups as possible. Due to the micro-blog nature of Twitter, it's easier to find vibrant voices to follow. There were several homeless individuals that were very active, like @staffaroadtrip, @project5050, @hardlynormal, and @awitness2011.
YouTube - Videos thrive on the Internet and are very effective at telling a story for non-profits. I produced three quick videos - one at Hope Faith Ministries, two at a radio station studio.
Report on publicity for event -
Aside from using social media to promote and document the broadcast, I sent out two news releases for the organizers and made calls to news organizations during the final week before the event. A series of graphic images were developed based on the original design.
- February 23 article by Kansas City Star columnist Mike Hendricks
- February 23 KCTV5 news report
- February 27 my report on Homelessness Marathon
During the 14-hour event, photos and video were uploaded in near real-time to Facebook, TwitPic, TwitVid, and YouTube. Because of the once-a-year nature of the event, there was a large increase in the number fans that Liked the Facebook Page or followed the Twitter feed right before the event. Specifically, 150 fans Liked Facebook Page on the day of the broadcast. See the chart below for the four weeks of Facebook activity.
Facebook landing page graphic
