Center for Environmental Innovation and Leadership (CEIL)/GOVgreen
Using Social Media to Build Awareness for a Government "Green" Event
"Tuvel worked closely with our sales and marketing teams to develop innovative social media programs that delivered results - generating awareness, excitement and traffic for our program launch. They identified and built relationships with government social media opinion leaders that are invaluable to us - both now and for the future. Tuvel also helped us develop our internal social media programs, teaching staff to use social media more effectively."
— Ann Seltz: President, Center for Environmental Innovation and Leadership
Goals
The goals of the outreach campaign for CEIL/GOVgreen were to:
- create awareness of CEIL and its programs
- drive traffic to its 2010 GOVgreen Conference and Exposition
Strategy
The campaign began with researching and targeting social media contacts among bloggers and other social networkers, list administrators, web forum moderators, newsletter publishers, podcasters and individuals with an interest and/or involvement in government, federal sustainability/EO 13514 or sustainability as it related to one of CEIL's primary focus areas – energy, conservation, facilities and transportation.
The communications strategy included creating an additional level of conference partnerships; a sustained communication effort that included a steady marketing buildup to the conference and integrated consistent messaging across offline and online channels; and traditional advertising and direct marketing efforts. The campaign also created excitement about GOVgreen through contests and promotions.
As the event approached, the strategy shifted to messaging focusing more specifically on tangible takeaways such as crowdsourcing, community giveback and content, and from outreach to community-building.
Tactics
Among the tactics used by Tuvel Communications for CEIL and GOVgreen were executing an outreach campaign that invited contacts to join and participate in the community; seeking out influencers and building relationships on behalf of CEIL, which were later leveraged for GOVgreen community-building efforts. The second phase of the outreach campaign involved going back to existing CEIL relationships and new contacts to help spread the GOVgreen word through their social networks.
Once relationships were in place, Tuvel carried on the conversation through GOVgreen's social networks on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
To increase value for the GOVgreen community, Tuvel created a social media panel for the conference. Panelists included those with a social media platform and followers to help us spread the word. This created a win-win scenario that offered value to attendees while also helping to promote GOVgreen. Rather than focus on the event, our messaging focused on value to the community.
Tuvel executed several contests and promotions to create excitement and drive registrations, including Capital Bikeshare gift certificates, Starbucks coffee discounts, and the chance to win a Kindle. Promotions were specifically geared to state, local and federal employees or contractors. Social media channels included Facebook, Twitter, e-mail outreach and the show blog.
The onsite program included live tweeting of sessions, photo-sharing from the exhibit hall and using the live tweet-streaming tool Tweetwally. To keep attendees on the show floor, Tuvel also created an ad-hoc Tweetup that followed the keynote address by Robert Kennedy, Jr.
Results
The CEIL/GOVgreen campaign was a resounding success. Tuvel uncovered social media contacts from and built relationships with federal departments and agencies, councils, and environmental clubs and associations, including the EPA, DoE, GSA and DoT, the GSA's "Go Green" program, and USDA/US Forest Service. Tuvel's efforts on behalf of CEIL/GOVgreen even secured exposure in the 3D virtual world – on the IRS Careers Island in Second Life!
By striking hybrid marketing deals with media sponsors that included social media contests and promotions, and exploring existing affiliate relationships for social media marketing opportunities, Tuvel secured social media promotion from affiliates Fuel Cells 2000 and ICMA, as well as sponsor Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
Tuvel also developed relationships with other PR firms and media companies which resulted in GOVgreen being promoted through newsletters (such as Telework Exchange and Energy Efficiency Markets); ad banners (including Social Feds and Social Innovations Conversations); a dedicated newsletter published by the US Forest Service Sustainability Solutions Program; and an episode of Gov 2.0 Radio, a leading government podcast.
The most successful effort was the Plant a Twee with GOVgreen promotion, which generated almost 100 retweets while reaching more than 33,000 people. Particularly gratifying is that this promotion generated almost 100 trees being planted for the National Arbor Day Foundation.
Other results included:
- Located and communicated with 675 GOVgreen contacts, one at a time.
- Developed relationships with 75 bloggers, social networkers, forum moderators, e-mail list owners, newsletter publishers, influencers and online communities involved in sustainability and/or government.
- Reached more than 160,000 people through blogs, newsletters, ad banners, social networks and other marketing channels.
- Grew Twitter followers by 285%, Twitter Lists six-fold , Facebook fan base by 100% and LinkedIn group members by over 50% over the course of only seven weeks.
- Facilitated the use of social media promotions and contests by media partners such as Greentech Media and GovLoop in order to create awareness and excitement through Twitter.
- Increased GOVgreen's Klout score by slightly more than 100% (from 25 at the beginning of November to 52 by mid-November).
- 20 websites Tuvel reached out to ascended to within the top 100 referring sites for GOVgreen.
Achieving Similar Success
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