social media - FireMane Studio

There is something to be said about this line of creative work: the opportunity to work on stranger things is far greater. For me, it's mammoths and sloths. One current client has a tremendously in depth project for which the end result is for a great cause. I've spent entire ten hour work days doing nothing but this project. Agonizing about every minute detail and trying to find ways to push it even further. Sleep has taken something of a backseat to my daily routine. And I couldn't be happier right now.

My client is the non-profit Friends of Big Bone. I've worked with the organization before on much smaller projects over the years until recently. Last November, they asked me if I would help them create a fundraising campaign for Big Bone Lick State Historic Site. I'll be honest, I've never done something on this scale solo but I was up for the challenge. It has since become something much larger than any of us closely involved could have imagined it to be. What makes it all worth it is the people I get to work with and for on this. Their passion for this campaign has been relentless and they're all volunteering their skills and resources to help out. I have much more time to dedicate to the project, so more often I'm building everything while the blocks I can't create are given to me when available from others. It can be frustrating, but I can no longer see myself where I was just a few months ago.

Breaking the final ties to an office environment was the hardest, but the greatest, choice I've made in my career. It removed the close fitting walls of what I was allowed to work on and has launched me into the deep space of possibilities. This project has been the driving force to keep up my optimism about my decision. I'm doing much more than designing a logo or a few print pieces, I'm doing just about everything that will be face-forward when the Indiegogo campaign launches on April 15th. I've learned just how demanding and time consuming doing social media really is. There was no class that prepared me for something quite so... OK I'll just say it... mammoth! Especially when working solo for about 90% of the time. Obviously I'm not working alone, but once content is handed to me, I have to weave it all together.

There are steps that I've commonly done that here I've bypassed completely for the sake of time. It's best to recognize what I'm skipping so I can look back where, more like if, things start to get shaky. School can only teach you different approaches and practices to start and generate the end products. Real life is quite different. The sleepless nights, extended meetings, massive pitfalls, all are still present but the consequences are much more dire with real world clients.

For now, I'm ecstatic that Friends of Big Bone gave me this opportunity to do something great with them. I want them to succeed just as much as they do with this campaign. Their drive and enthusiasm for their cause is something to admire and be seen as an example. Now it's back to work for me!

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Shameless self promotion time!

OK, not entirely shameless. I'm pretty proud of this current endeavor I get to be a part of.

My good friends at Friends of Big Bone are launching a social media campaign to precede a fundraiser for their visitor center. The goal is to raise $70,000 by the end of the year. The first fund raising campaign will target $20,000 to complete phase 01 of the project, and will launch on April 1st. We are still narrowing down the crowd funding platform, but I'll update that when we've secured it. If you want to be one of the cool kids and donate before the launch date, you can do so here. The funds will go to update the visitor's center at Big Bone Lick State Park.

New displays, wall murals, and lots of other great improvements to the facility.

Big Bone Lick is an amazing park, and I'm not just saying that. I love going for hikes in the woods and once the snow is gone, I'll be making a lot more trips out there. This is a great area to visit and has a lot of history that goes all the way back to the last ice age. If you've never been, check it out! I'm a fan of palaeontology and they have found lots of bones in the park. A giant ground sloth was just one of many specimens that have been discovered there. They also have a live bison herd on the grounds. Come spring time, there should be a new calf or two walking around.

Why am I sharing all of this? Well, I'm working on the social media side and I can't help but gush about it. For the campaign, I created Harlan, full name Harlan G. Sloth, a giant ground sloth character that will be the figure head of the project. He has his own Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. Not only did I create the character, I made a puppet. Yes, of all the weird and fun things I've made in correspondence to my career, this is the first time I've made a puppet mascot. See how awesome he is below! He's also got business cards. While he's traveling around, I'll hand out his cards so more people can follow the quickest giant ground sloth on Earth. Or really, the only giant ground sloth on Earth. He just woke up from a 10,000 year nap and just realized he's the only one left. Kind of a bummer, but he's up for exploring and making new friends.

I hope I've peaked your interests and you swing by Harlan's accounts to see what fun things he's doing! Share with everyone you know! He'll be traveling around the tri-state area, but mostly northern Kentucky and Cincinnati. If you run into him, nap a photo and tag him. If there's a place you think Harlan should check out, let me know!
Harlan and all his giant ground sloth glory.

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Many businesses rely a great deal on social media. With more and more eyeballs scanning the internet for answers to consumer questions, issues, and ideas, companies are quick to pick up the torch and use the platform to their advantage. But is this a good choice? Social media has become amazingly powerful and influential. Are companies using that access to power for good or for evil? Evil not in the sense of a mustache-twirling villain laughing maniacally while lightning strikes through the window of their laboratory. Although, some campaigns seem to have that flavor to them. I mean evil in the sense that it promotes their product while treating their potential customers like children or flat out insulting them. Or it's a product or service that is more harmful than helpful. Junk food for example, while pretty tasty I'll admit, isn't very good for you.

Hot Durkey

What is hot durkey? Well, it's as unpleasant as it sounds. The folks at Oscar Mayer came up with this idea to emulate consumers' searches for turducken to their advantage. For those not in the know, turducken is a turkey stuffed with a duck and chicken, or other meat. You could shove an entire meatloaf into a turkey and serve it at your next big dinner party and it might be a big hit. Something of a meat-ception if you will. Oscar Mayer people decided to jump on this bandwagon of meat oddities but they went a more labor intensive route: a bunch of hotdogs molded around a loaf of bread to form the look of a full size turkey, and lovingly called it hot durkey. No, I'm not kidding.

Hot dogs are a staple food of summer, in the USA at least, and would certainly not be a big seller during the winter months. They are simple enough to prepare, but I remember eating a lot of dogs when I was a kid. My range of flavor buds were limited to hot dogs, cookies, chocolate milk, and skittles. Not exactly what is considered a candidate for culinary critiques. For busy parents, it's a quick and easy meal to put in front of your kids during their winter break if they're really picky eaters. But the hot durkey isn't meant for kids, oh no. It's meant for the grown-ups that are coming to your big holiday soirée. From the sheer size of it, kids would get sick of it long before adults would. Leftover turkey is bad enough. Imagine leftover hot durkey sitting in your fridge for a week or two.

How did this monstrosity of meat get popular? Through social media. Even though this was aimed at Thanksgiving cooks, I'm sure they won't let up for the holiday crowd. But is it a good use of your social media power? Is pushing a product that is clearly not healthy for you a good use of the wide range of social media? Well, it certainly isn't out of the range of other preparation suggestions that Oscar Mayer promotes for their hot dogs.

On the official Oscar Mayer website, there are over 300 recipes for their dogs alone. That includes a mix of cutting the dogs into fun or cute shapes, and forming them into little cars or creatures for the kids. Again, hot dogs are really just for kids. So a mass of hot dogs in the shape of a turkey isn't out of the realm of possibility for the dog company (even though I couldn't find the directions for the hot durkey on their site). I'm more surprised it took until 2014 for the idea to get popular enough to garish backlash. Because every social media campaign gets backlash, it's par for the course.

While I don't want to sound like I'm bashing the hot durkey, I just don't understand why it's something the company would want to push. Oscar Mayer is owned by Kraft Foods, which already has a solid footing in the holiday meal prep with their other products. The amount of hot dogs one person has to buy to emulate a full size turkey, even just to form on the outside of a loaf of bread, is on track to meet or beat the fourth of July cookout. Do the cold weather months hurt their hot dog sales so bad that they need to launch into full bizarre cooking mode to keep shareholders happy? Did they think this would be a cute idea to focus on through their social media that it was worth any type of backlash? Who knows in the end.

This is only one example of using social media for, let's just say, a more questionable campaign. It did what social media is intended to do: make your product or brand memorable. Whether that memory is positive or negative really is out of the hands of the company after the fact. But the fact remains, it worked. The internet was talking about it during the buildup to Thanksgiving and I'm talking about it now. It did its job just fine. I know it didn't make a sale with me, but spreading the word about it is what social media is all about.

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