Social Media Skepticism

If you’ve ever doubted what social media can do for you, keep reading.

I recently founded ACT: A Charity Thing and have been drowning in my own sea of ideas on how to promote it. I use facebook, twitter and linkedin quite a bit and have moderately promoted it through those channels but have yet to see the big rise in curiosity on the website’s analytics. On twitter, I am a member of the #backchannel tribe, which is exclusive to Detroit’s Channel 7 Action News team. And around 9:30 pm last night, as I was working away on client stuff, it hit me.

I went outside into the 6 degree frigid cold weather and videotaped myself for 6 seconds saying who I am, where iAct (it’s a charity thing), which was currently outside, and then piqued the curiosity by closing with “it’s a charity thing.” Then I posted it on YouTube as fast as I could and announced to the #backchannel twitter “tribe” that if my 6-second video gets 66 views in 66 minutes, I proposed Stephen Clark, anchor for Channel 7 news, to give a live on-air thumbs up.

My video hit 58 views by 11:30 pm, and closed out with a total of 78 views by 11:40 pm. Not quite the goal I was shooting for, but really no complaints. That’s a lot of views to get in a little over an hour just by tweeting to one average sized tribe. And even Stephen Clark himself was giving my video a couple of views, which meant he was definitely on board with giving the ole’ thumbs up while live on the air. He’s such a cool guy, he actually gave the thumbs up on air even though my goal was 8 views short.

But that’s not how I play the game, so I will definitely try again. This has given me the idea that every day, iAct somewhere or some way new and different than the day before. When my video gets views, people have to wonder what the heck is iAct and what the heck am I doing? It’s buzz. It’s curiosity. And it will bring the attention to ACT that is necessary for a successful first year event.

For more information on ACT, visit the website here.

Tylar Masters is the owner of Tylar & Co. Web Design & Marketing Detroit, Michigan and is the founder of ACT: A Charity Thing.