#AmericaWants: How USA TODAY

made charity cooler than Justin Bieber

Glenna DeRoy

Social media analyst, USA TODAYWith credit to Alexandra Nicholson, Cone Inc.

“What America Wants”: What’s the deal?

Idea: USA TODAY is uniquely relevant to the American people and connected to the American conversation as “The

Nation’s Newspaper.”

• Brand campaign launched in March 2010

• Focused on media and ad industries

• Lots of play in trade publications – in print, online

• Also advertised on social sites, i.e. Facebook

Tweet this:

#AmericaWants (name of charity) to get a full-page ad in USA TODAY.

How #AmericaWants worked

Idea: The charity that receives the most tweets (as measured by Radian6) wins an ad in USA TODAY worth $189K.

Rules (handled by Marketing and Legal):

• Time frame: April 13-16, 2010

• Specific phrase for accurate results

• Required to be a 501(c)(3)

• Limit liability: “USA TODAY will not be responsible for incomplete, lost, late or misdirected tweets …”

Promotion (handled by Marketing and Editorial):

• Kindness community, USATODAY.com

• Promotion via USAT Twitter accounts

• Print promotion in USA TODAY

• Outreach to philanthropic, charitable contacts

aw.usatoday.com

How much it cost

Measurement (handled by Radian6 and IT):

• Approx. $2,500 for Radian6 data

• It could adapt for another campaign in ½ day, tops

Total cost (paid for by Marketing):

• $2,500, ½ day of labor, plus cost of prize offered

“90% of that process was Radian6.”

“Once we came up with – and paid for – an approach that worked, it was pretty straightforward.”

Results: By the numbers

4 days

60,000 mentions of #AmericaWants

500charities mentioned

3 number of times #AmericaWants trended

Winners:

1) To Write Love on Her Arms @TWOLHA

2) PETA

3) @TeensMAD4Rwanda

#AmericaWants tweets over time

Impact of #AmericaWants

1) Free publicity: Ads in our paper, Mashable, Twitter

2) Promoted USA TODAY as a brand that understands social media

3) Goodwill: Who doesn’t love pictures of happy kids?

Why #AmericaWants worked

1) Low barrier of entry for participants

2) Kept our tweet short for easy RTs

3) Universal concept: Everyone has a cause they believe in

4) Twitter is pretty democratic; small causes had a chance

5) Celeb, nonprofit participation

Tips and takeaways

1) Keep it simple; set clear rules

2) Decide on a reasonable timeline for participation

3) Understand how to pull metrics

4) Work with Legal and IT on execution

5) Choose the right incentive

6) Understand how and where to promote

7) Involve all possible internal departments in promotion

Contact me

Glenna DeRoy@ghderoy

gderoy@usatoday.com

social.usatoday.comsocial@usatoday.com