Great Social Media Idea: Mascot Birthday Video

OMG: Return of the Mack... er... Blog has made it to week two. Wasn't sure I had it in me. Many thanks to everyone for saying such nice things to me on Twitter - all ya'll are wonderful!

I'm still working on re-building my arsenal of great social media ideas (i.e. - I have a lot of browsing and "borrowing" ideas to do), so today I'm going to share yet another fabulous idea that came through my suggestion box!

And truly, this is pretty much social media perfection from University of Connecticut. Doggies! Music! A bone-shaped cake!!!

I'm eternally jealous of schools that have a real-life animal as a mascot. Because cute animals rule the internet, some of the best social media ideas I have shared on this site have featured real life animal mascots. And this video is no exception, from the unexpected arrival of Jonathan's doggie friends to the impossibly perfect YouTube preview image. Predictably, it blew up UConn's FB page.

And it didn't stop just at the full video... take a look at this great suggestion from UConn's Alexa Biron, who shared this idea with me:

Helpful idea for others: When we create YouTube videos, I work with our video team to have 15-second Instagram 'trailers' made. They are a great way to expose our IG followers to a preview of a video and promote the YouTube page. The IG video version of Jonathan's birthday party received over 1,100 likes: http://instagram.com/p/txOuydS79Z/

Completely agreed on the IG trailer - I've tried it once or twice, to much success. Really, that should be a standard line item on the video production list these days.

Thanks, Alexa, for sharing this gem, and happy birthday (belated!) to Jonathan from all of us here at SMFC. OK, sure, it's just me and the Magnetic Fields Pandora station, but whatever... you get what I mean.