Oregon Food Bank came to Spot Color Marketing for help with launching their first social media campaign in support of their biggest annual fundraiser, the Waterfront Blues Festival.

124,000 Impressions | 500% Increase in Re-Tweets | 600% Increase in Link Clicks

Overview

Oregon Food Bank provides emergency food to people who are hungry through a cooperative statewide network of hunger-relief agencies, helping 1 in 5 households fend off hunger. Their biggest fundraiser, the Waterfront Blues Festival, is held at the Portland Waterfront Park over the 4th of July weekend every year.

Objective

Oregon Food Bank wanted to take advantage of social media channels to promote and boost enthusiasm for the Waterfront Blues Festival. Increasing social media engagement leading up to and throughout the festival would better position OFB with potential donors through the rest of the year.

Challenge

The Oregon Food Bank team had never implemented an intense, aggressive social media strategy before. They were excited about the opportunities this new form of communication would present and they were eager to learn how to make it work for their event. Additionally, they realized that members of their typical demographic were not social media power users. Inspiring this group to engage, while building an audience with a more social media savvy audience, required a specific and creative plan.

Strategy

Spot Color began by taking stock of what was being posted on both the Oregon Food Bank and Waterfront Blues Festival social media channels. We developed a plan for building on and strengthening that content with an in-depth social media calendar. This calendar gave specific topics for the OFB team to post about on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for the three months leading up to the festival and during the event. We targeted specific hashtags to connect with that social media savvy audience and we executed a photo contest and giveaway campaign to appeal to everyone.

The entire plan was implemented through three intensive training and content-generating sessions we held with the OFB team.

Finally, members of the Spot team stepped into the action by volunteering to attend the festival and live-posting on the 4th.

Results

The Oregon Food Bank team confidently executed the social media campaign Spot Color Marketing developed. As a result, they gained a wider audience with new social media followers, including more than 2000 new likes on the Waterfront Blues Festival Facebook page. Overall, their social media presence contributed to the success of the event.

  • 26% increase in Twitter followers
  • 124,000 impressions in 28 days — an increase in 457% over the previous 28 days
  • 500% increase in retweets and 600% increase in link clicks

The 2014 Waterfront Blues Festival was an incredibly successful event and the donations generated will allow Oregon Food Bank to continue their amazing work in the next year.

  • $1.1 million in donations
  • 100,000 festival attendees
  • 33K pounds of food donated

Visit The Oregon Food Bank website to get involved!