Shelter’s Edge

- Pinterest—it’s not just for showing off those cute boots you want (tho’ there’s nothing wrong with that!). Love seeing the 4^th largest social network used to help save animals’ lives and raise funds, like at Humane Society of Greater Dayton.

The $100K Challenge contestant teamed up with local businesses The Problem Solvers and Dayton Daily News on the Repin and Pets Win campaign. Every time a photo is repinned from Dayton Daily News’ board featuring animals available for adoption at HSGD, the Ohio agency gets $1. Cool—$$ and promotion of shelter pets!

- When this photo from $100K Challenge contestant Animal Friends showed up in my Facebook feed, I thought: “Wow, that’s one of those little creative mini-miracles; I wonder how it came to be,” and “That is totally going viral.” With 864 likes and 128 shares, the latter is true. And the former? Mini-miracle, yes—but also great internal shelter communications and genius marketing.

“One of our vet techs noticed that when Chiquita naps, her spots make a heart!” AF’s Director of Communications, Jolene Louise, told me. “She pointed this out to an adoption counselor, who ran to show our resident photographer. When he showed me the photo he took, I knew that our Facebook fans would love it. I asked him to add the logo and tagline in hopes that people would be moved to share our work—and maybe find a home for Chiquita!”

- Speaking of taglines… Does your agency have one? Does said tagline knock your socks off? If not, GettingAttention.org offers inspiration with their database of more than 4,800 nonprofit taglines. Sign up for it here and find out why a good tagline can be your marketing and fundraising BFF.

- We at ASPCApro.org cannot stop talking about the incredible work done by the contestants during the first month of the ASPCA Rachael Ray $100K Challenge: More than 19,000 lives saved… HELLO amazing adoptions and return-to-owner superstars!! Well, OK, we did stop talking about it briefly, but only to check out this message from Rachael Ray:

- Have you seen this one from Austin Humane Society?:

I’ve seen a lot of agencies using the sentiment in this song in their adoptions promos, but this one stood out for a couple of reasons—# 1 being how AHS introduced it on their Facebook page: “We believe that a shelter should be a fun place for the animals, a place where they feel love and get plenty of socialization while they wait for their forever homes. See our shelter staff and some of our adoptable animals in action!” There’s that, and, oh, the little caption bubbles embedded in the film, the real caption bubble signs that staff hold up, the music video-style editing, the close-ups of the animals interspersed between group shots and people shots, the little meow soundbyte at the end…

Yeah, yeah, this song is gonna be stuck in your head all day if it’s not already there…:)

Related links:
“Take Five Friday: Dirty Dishes, Prepping for Isaac & Who’s on Pinterest”
Creating a Shelter Slideshow
“Wordless Wednesday: Creative Marketing”

Tags: Adoption Marketing, Adoption Programs, Marketing & Media, Photos, Saving Lives, Social Media, Videos

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