PowerPoint Presentation

Commemorating 25 years of the U.S. Farm Bill

My region of the Forest Service was provided $10,000 to commemorate 25 years since UCF was authorized by the Farm Bill. This Forest Service program has touched the lives of millions of people. How can we express how important it is to people and communities across the United States? This lightening presentation will share what we did and what we learned.1

Contest to Create a MemeMeme: a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.

My idea was to run a contest through a state urban forest council to generate several winning short video memes that would hopefully go viral, touching millions of people, and attracting fresh public attention ultimately to grow awareness of our national movement and the importance of investing in urban trees and forests.

This little vine video was a catalyst for me. A vine is a six second looping video. This one had 330,000 views. You might look at it over and over just to try and figure it out or find a deeper meaning. Ultimately, as the tree goes so do we, right?2

Going ViralVine had 200 million active users with 1.5 billion loops watched everyday; ages 18-20Twitter is used by 80% of world leaders and 320 million active users;Tumblr has 280 million blogs; 69% ages 15-34Instagram has 75 million daily users; 41% ages 16-24YouTube 1 billion users; 82% of ages 14-17 are active.Facebook 1.7 billion users; 100 million hours of daily video watch time

A quick search on statistics for various on-line platforms shows the potential for Memes to go viral. The numbers are amazing. 3

Going ViralVine had 200 million active users with 1.5 billion loops watched everyday; ages 18-20Twitter is used by 80% of world leaders and 320 million active users;Tumblr has 280 million blogs; 69% ages 15-34Instagram has 75 million daily users; 41% ages 16-24YouTube 1 billion users; 82% of ages 14-17 are active.Facebook 1.7 billion users; 100 million hours of daily video watch time

Further, Just to let this soak in But there is no formula for what makes a meme, except generally funny, surprising, or cute in a hip sort of way.

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Vine by TomThinks39,000,000 views

Heres another one by Tom Thinks. This one truly went viral with 39 million views. How did he do this? Our world revolves around the tree. The medium is a powerful one, when we create mystery

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Ready, Set, GoLaunch a video contest on social media that will engage local tree boards, families, and college-age students.Offer prizes to producers of creative short videos (6 to 30 seconds) expressing the positive impact of trees on people.Choose winning videos and get them posted, in hopes they get liked and shared for millions of views.Keep it easy and fun!

My idea for a video contest was deceptively simple6

TreePennsylvania.org Video Contest

After a number of administrative and bureaucratic hurtles for the Forest Service and state government to curate a contest on Twitter and other platforms, the nonprofit Pennsylvania Urban Forest Council was able to create a new website and host the contest on a trial basis. EverybodysTrees was the unique hashtag chosen.7

Our ProcessDevelop and post rules on Tree Pennsylvania websiteAnnounce/market the contest to generate short videos that highlight the positive impact of trees. Top Prizes: GoPro video cameras/travelParticipants post to their own Twitter feeds using #EverybodysTreesDo a test run in early autumn over a six week periodShare the video, learn and repeat at broader scale

So we targeted a pilot contest and prizes to Pennsylvania partners Universities and colleges, Tree Campus USA, Municipal Tree boards, Nonprofit and Tree Tender organizations. It was curated on Twitter with the #EverybodysTrees. We did the trial run in October, and now we are here to unveil the results and get your feedback before going national.8

Trees Give us Reason to Celebrate

Results:

Over a six week open period, we generated a small number of videos that were of pretty high quality. Some quirky, funny, sweet, and even some of high quality. A promising result for the little effort we were able to muster among our many other assignments. And the Winner is9

And the Winner is:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haf00LYXrj8 Video title: Positive Impact of Trees; by Mackenzie Shiner

And the winner is: Mackenzie Shiner Play twice if time allows.10

Video title: Positive Impact of Trees; by Mackenzie Shiner

And the Winner is:

What do you think. Yes, its a little rough around the edges, and the script is not what we might write. But its authentic and in the voice of a college freshman whom we rarely hear. Producing and selecting the video is just the beginninghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haf00LYXrj8

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And the Winner is:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haf00LYXrj8 Video title: Positive Impact of Trees; by Mackenzie Shiner

And the winner is: Mackenzie Shiner Play twice if time allows.12

Next StepsSeek your input and help to market and go viral.Repeat: Market the contest nationally and more broadly with strategic hashtags and prizes in partnership with others.Consider a specific challenge or call to action that will build support for trees and urban forestsRe-release seasonally with different calls to action.Provide a homepage with links to state and local organizations

the challenge now is to post strategically with unique hashtags to gain views, likes, shares, retweets, and favorites. This is a timeless video on the Positive Impact of Trees. We hope now to bring the contest to scale, to repeat it nationally with perhaps a specific challenge or call to action. What I ask of each of you is to jot down a few of your best ideas on a business card and hand it to me at the end of this session.

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Lessons LearnedBetter plan and map outreach to creative arts colleges and other unique producers.Explore lower age limits for video production to generate funny, quirky, authentic video.Consider seasonal timing and length of contest.Thank youPA State CouncilVideographers everywhereUS Forest Service

As I said, this contest was released quickly and not perfectly timed. We need to better plan and map out our target audiences, consider lower age limits to produce video perhaps. This was done in the fall, when spring or summer may have been better, but we had to start somewhere, right? Thanks again to the PA State Council, and finally happy birthday to the US Forest Service urban and community forestry program!

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