Successfully Integrating Traditional & Social Media

The most successful marketing campaigns integrate social and traditional media.  One of our clients, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is using both these mediums successfully to create interest about an important safety issue.  On Facebook and Twitter combined NFPA already has over 30 thousand followers, who they are leveraging to get the word out about their latest initiative.  Yesterday, NFPA held a side by side burn of identical model rooms, one equipped with sprinklers and one without.  The demonstration was held to protest new building codes in Massachusetts that NFPA believes are unsafe.

 

This event obviously created some exciting visuals as you can see in this post, the fire in the room equipped with sprinklers was extinguished in only 20 seconds.  How NFPA leveraged this event and these visuals to get their message out is why it’s a good case study .  So what did NFPA do well?

 

Attendance at the Event

Before the event press releases were sent and the live burn received statewide press coverage.  Check out some of the TV coverage from WCVB here:

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/29675858/detail.html

 

Post in Real Time

Less than two hours after the event NFPA had a post up on their blog about the demonstration.  It’s important to share information in real time, while the material is relevant.  To do this, ask your photographer to email you some of the best shots immediately after the event or if you’re taking your own photos download them as soon as you return to the office.  Then post the shots on Facebook or as part of a blog post.  NFPA tweeted and posted on Facebook, getting the information to their thousands of followers quickly and at a low-cost. 

 

Create a Microsite

Since the sprinkler initiative only applies to certain states and NFPA’s focus is much broader they created a website specifically for this cause firesprinklerinitiative.org.  Creating a microsite can be a great idea for organizations when they are promoting a particular program that requires more than a page on the main website.   A microsite makes it easy to direct your audience to more information about your initiative and ensures it won’t be buried on your main site.

 

Want to see more of how NFPA is leveraging social media?

Find them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/theNFPA

Or on twitter @NFPA