This is a critique of the social media campaign of Relay for Life, an organization I have been involved with in varying degrees for about 15 years. When I participated in my first relay, the great majority of their efforts were via printed media – mailings, billboards, and mass distribution of flyers. They have come a long way in their online presence, but have a ways to go in making that presence truly interactive and successful.
The site is nicely done, but needs to be crawled more often as some of the links did not work. That’s a major turn-off for me. The site is simple and colorful with easy-to-follow navigation and lots of photos of smiling people and cute kids. It has tabs for different audiences: committee members, team captains, survivors and community, as well as links to cancer prevention info, toolkits and guidebooks, advice podcasts, and tips for fundraising. There are also links for local organizations and an offshoot site for college-based relay events. From what I could see there was not a lot of participation in either of those areas. Local organizations have sites, but they don’t seem to be updated very regularly and seem to be more like bulletin boards of event times and locations. The site seems a bit clinical, but since it is affiliated with the American Cancer Society and based on fundraising for a medical need, that is to be expected. The blog link is mostly a collection of businesses offering products for teams to buy for fundraising. There was not much there worth reading unless you want to find a source for cheap junk to sell.
The link to the Cancer Survivor Network, however, was excellent. Here there are chat rooms for most every type of cancer and every subject you might think of from where to buy wigs to the much needed venting forum. The chat rooms are very popular and I was happy to see that although there were lots of posts, there were very few without more than 3 or 4 replies – that tells me that readers are there for each other and are looking for ways to interact with others in like situations.
There’s a link to their new mobile app which helps calculate fundraising totals, but the app is only for the iPhone and the reviews are pretty poor. I think they need to take it down and provide the needed patches to keep it from crashing before they market it. It will only tick people off.
The Relay for Life Facebook page looks much like the web site. I like some of the posts which reiterate “comments overheard at relays” and then readers’ replies to them. I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of Facebook and their page was like many others --people having private conversations with two or three people in a very public way.
Their foray into the world of Twitter is better. Their posts are actually interesting. They tweet event times and locations, cancer prevention tips, thanks to corporate sponsors, and fundraising achievements. The odd thing is that there is only a total of 454 tweets although the first one was posted in August of 08. With the popularity of the Relay for Life program, they could do much more with their Twitter page. They have 9470 followers – they need to promote submission of ideas and more involvement.
The RFL YouTube channel is in sore need of interactivity. There are over 60 uploads, but I didn’t see any that looked like they had been done by relay participants. I think the draw of YouTube is seeing what real people are doing, not just TV commercials over and over. It would be a big improvement if they would allow teams to upload videos of their events and even encourage funny amateur commercials for their fundraisers.
My blog was to be about myself with cultural and individual character studies and my reaction to them. Yikes! Although I’ve enjoyed working on the assignments so far, I need to work on finding a more interesting topic for future courses if I want to pursue gaining popularity on a blog. Since at this point, blogging for me would be for class projects and fun, I‘d more enjoy writing about something entertaining – both for me and for the readers I hope to attract.
But, since this is the topic I committed to, I’ll offer my thoughts on how I would incorporate social media. I can’t think of any reason for any type of app and I’m not interested in pursuing Facebook “friends,” so my interactivity would be mostly limited to tweeting when I post something new and relying on comments to my blog. I think that it might be interesting to pose questions to readers or provide a scenario where it might be easy to judge others and ask them how they would respond to the situation or people involved.
This is a really great critique. I like how you broke up each section as a new section in your blog posting so we could separate each part. It makes it easy to go back in fourth to the website back to your critique to the website and back to read what you said about it. I didn’t realize that there are chat rooms for most every type of cancer and every subject. This is the best idea I personally feel for the site. The fact that it offers the opportunity to collaborate and speak with others just like you that wouldn’t be as easy to do without social media. This is definitely an example of good social media.
ReplyDeleteThis a strong effort, Mimi. Like idonno, I like how you broke the critique down by section of the site. At each stop, you offer the pros and cons of the organization's social media effort. I think your points are spot on. Like you, I think the YouTube Channel is being underutilized and having relayers post their own videos seems like a great way to draw more participation from a key public. I don't see any areas in which you can improve on this - although I will point out that technically, over 60 videos should read more than 60 (an old professor of mine used to flip out when we used over). Just technically, though, as popular usage of over as a quantifier has rendered the old rule basically void. A great writing effort for a great cause. Relay For Life is a wonderful organization and I have participated in various events over the years to support the group at the local level. An enjoyable read.
ReplyDeleteMimi, this is a solid critique of an organizations use of social media. Your writing is clear and hits on several points - both pointing out good uses of interactive media and failed attempts.
ReplyDeleteYou have really dug into this site and picked it apart - but you don't just say "this doesn't work". Instead, you suggest creative criticism: ways the organization could easily implement new videos, content, etc. to make the site more successful.
I love your point about the chat rooms offered - that is so important to anyone looking for answers; to talk to real people instead of just doctors who talk above many patients' heads.
Another great blog post....great work!
Ouch. Yes, the Relay for Life web site needs a makeover. “Clinical” describes it perfectly. I normally love symmetry and “block-style” layouts, but theirs lacks unity and flow. They give us too much to look at. For comparison’s sake, I visited the site for the “Light the Night” walk put on by the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. I found it much more engaging – streamlined graphics with one poignant tagline: “Walk as if your life depends on it. Walk because someone’s life does.” Dang. Wish I’d thought of that.
ReplyDeleteYou say you’re not interested in Facebook, but if people look for you on Twitter, they will look for you on Facebook, too. I know many bloggers for whom a typical post includes the post itself, a tweet, and a link on their blog’s corresponding Facebook fan page. Others have a “community” feature on their blogs where they field questions and discussion topics from their web audience.
The options are endless. A student in a different section of this course wrote a script for a web series pilot, based on his own experience of always playing the “wingman” for his friends instead of the guy who gets the girl.
You picked a great example of an organization whose online presence exists, but could use serious improvements. Nice job.