How To Raise $11,483.30 For Red Cross to Benefit Japan in 7 Days: #Dallas4Japan

It’s crazy to think Dallas4Japan raised over $10,000 in 7 days for the Red Cross to support the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund. But thanks to a host of marketing and promotion partners and the power of social media, we were able to rally the city of Dallas to open their hearts and their wallets. Many folks have asked me how we did it and I wanted to provide some insight. Honestly, from the beginning, we knew social media and specifically twitter would be an important tool to leverage to drive awareness.

The Idea and Timeline for Dallas4Japan

First, the credit for the idea of the event goes to Theodore Kim and the Asian American Journalists Association. He forwarded me an email asking Social Media Club of Dallas to get involved to help promote and organize an event to raise money for Japan. From there, we were immediately interested and felt that we could reach out to many of the existing professional organizations in town to help promote and market to their membership lists. So here’s the rough timeline and I’m sure there are a few things I have forgot as we were moving so fast so I apologize to those I didn’t mention.

3/17/11

• Eventbrite’s J. Damany Daniel immediately stepped up to waive their fees and SMC Dallas agreed to cover credit card fees so 100% of all proceeds could benefit the Red Cross
• Emailed the leadership teams of DFWAMA, AIGA, DFWSEM, AAL Dallas, and others
• Created @Dallas4Japan Twitter account and sent first tweet at 10:31pm
• Published Eventbrite registration page at 11:44pm

3/18/11

• Contacted every Dallas LinkedIn connection I had.
• IABC Dallas agreed to promote to their members

3/20/11

• Confirmed venue as The Pads at Aloft Dallas thanks to Jimmy Ball who introduced me to venue owner.

3/21/11

• PRSA Dallas and Texas Young Professionals agreed to promote to their members
• Mark Brinkeroff tweeted out about need for a DJ and Devin Pike agreed to donate his time for free for Red Carpet Crash
• Poparazzi For Hire donated their photobooth and photographers for event.
• LyTesia Jackson publishes story on Examiner.com/dallas

3/22/11

• 3/22/11  Elysa Rice publishes blog post on SMC Dallas Blog
• 3/22/11  Decided to solicit gift certificates and other prizes for a raffle. Big thanks to Nikki Bonds, J. Damany Daniel, Elysa Rice, and Cynthia Smoot for getting so many certificates. Then American Airlines Center donated a Premium Suite
• 3/22/11  Eventbrite publishes blog post promoting the event

3/23/11

• Huddle Productions crew Chris Yates and Corey Frey produce Dallas4Japan promotional video and publish to YouTube
• Elysa Rice published blog post on http://iliveindallas.com
• Red Cross of Dallas publishes Red Alert blog post promoting the event

3/24/11

• Published a quick last plea for donations via video which received 582 views
• Jessica Nunez crafted and posted press release on PR Newswire.
• Matthew Feldman of Aquent sends me a DM confirming Aquent would match donations.
• Chuck McCoy of North Texas Angel Network promotes the event to over 150 contacts
• Brooks Thomas donates two roundtrip vouchers on behalf of Southwest Airlines worth $400 each for silent auction.
• Dallas4Japan raises $11,483.30 in 7 Days!

3/27/11

• Published photos of event to Facebook

By the Numbers

• Total Raised: $11,483.30 including $3,349.90 match from Aquent from Eventbrite donations.
• Eventbrite Pageviews: 2,638
• Facebook Event RSVPs: 127
• Twitter Stats and graphs by RowFeeder, TweetReach and Twitter:
  • Mentions of #Dallas4Japan: 501 tweets by 7pm 3/24
  • Potential Reach of #Dallas4Japan mentions, tweets and retweets: 1,000,751 before 7pm
  • Total Sent Tweets from @Dallas4Japan: 86

Twitter Follower Growth:

I knew with only 7 days, Twitter was going to be the most effective medium beyond the partner organizations. I decided to leverage TweetAdder for the first time to mass follow and unfollow folks in the Dallas area to gain the most followers in the shortest amount of time. Initially I started just searching for folks already talking about the Japan Earthquake, then started following folks with the most followers on Dallas named lists. By the night of the event we had already had nearly 600 followers.

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