Best Non-profit Interactive Application

Target Audience: Age group swimmers (age 11-18) and their parents; including current USA Swimming members as well as potential new members. Objectives: Swimming is a passion sport, but at the age group we’re targeting, it’s crucial that it stay true to the camaraderie and fun that lies at the heart of the young swimmer. Early in 2011, USA Swimming was looking to provide an interactive promotion to build online momentum with USA Swimming fans and athlete members, building to the ultimate goal of increasing Facebook followers to 50,000 in 2011. With a larger, more passionate online community, USA Swimming can leverage active social media engagement to build their brand leading up to the 2012 London Olympic Games. Approach: In order to extend the reach of the “America’s Swim Team” campaign Faction developed and launched in 2010, we created an online video mashup tool for 2011. The tool itself was designed to allow easy creation and sharing of pre-selected elements to help spread the campaign’s reach via Facebook and Twitter. Members were invited to introduce themselves to America’s Swim Team by creating a customized video with on-screen text that tells everyone about their goals, specialties and more. USA Swimming provided music, images and video clips from National Team members, competitions and the Olympics for users to use when creating their own videos. Users also had the option of adding their own personal images and videos and could then customize effects, colors, etc. as well as mix in different videos, music and photos per pre-set functionality. It was important to include a promotion to further build engagement with the brand – we addressed this by including a voting element into the tool. Users were able to vote and rate videos; the highest ratings would become eligible to win prizes, such as a visit to their club by a member of the USA Swimming National Team. Results: The campaign is ongoing and will be supplemented with additional elements in 2012, but overall, USA Swimming’s Facebook followers increased to exceed the initial goal. The functionality built into the tool is also now ready to support more campaigns as we build momentum toward the Olympic Games. http://mashup.usaswimming.org/MediaList.aspx?sort=play&page=1

Contributors:

FACTION MEDIA

Location: United States