LECNA: Social Media Campaign
Empowering Brand Champions through Social Networking
The Situation:
The Lutheran Educational Conference of North America (LECNA) represents 41 Lutheran colleges and universities, and engages in a variety of activities to help high school students and their families learn more about Lutheran higher education. In 2008, LECNA launched a program called “Champions of Lutheran Higher Education” to provide tools and resources for adults who want to share the value of the Lutheran college experience with students and families.
The Communications Challenge:
LECNA’s goal was to recruit more than 500 Champions in 2009, but they needed a strategy for explaining the program, sending information to the right audience and making it easy for volunteers to become involved. They also required an online platform that would appeal to a wide variety of people, from youth pastors to parents to college admissions counselors, and allow LECNA to easily share articles, photos and event information.
Strategy:
In addition to a Champions subsite on www.lutherancolleges.org, we developed a Facebook fan page for the Champions program and a specific e-mail recruitment campaign. Within two days of the call-to-action e-mail, LECNA achieved their goal size for the group.
Results:
The “Champions of Lutheran Colleges and Universities” Facebook fan page has a growing membership of people who care about Lutheran higher education and are interested in sharing information with high school students and parents. Through the fan page, they learn about news in Lutheran higher education, share photos from Lutheran College Fair events and network with fellow Champions, and thus support LECNA’s ongoing efforts.
