Great Social Media Idea: What's that Sheet on your Porch?

For whatever reason I've backed off on the puns lately (not for lack of interest, I assure you!), but I I must admit I'm pretty proud of this headline. In my cub reporter days I loved writing headlines (my personal favorite being a feature on future UP provost Tom Greene titled "Mr. Greene, In Franz Hall, with the Ed Majors.") Clue-themed headlines... those were the good old days. Now, I have such great disdain for click-bait headlines that I make mine as boring as possible. It doesn't help with the SEO or the traffic, but at least I can sleep at night.

But I digress. You're not here for my musings on headlines. You're hear for the laughs! And the music! And, I suppose, the social media ideas.

Well how 'bout this flying (get it?) example from University of Dayton: a porch sheet sign contest!

If you take a look at UD's Facebook page, you'll see that they have been posting select photos of the porch sheets over the past week, many racking up huge engagement numbers. This contest is part of a monthlong #iloveud campaign, which has been giving out t-shirts and collecting wedding photos and love stories and favorite memories and all sorts of other social media goodness and is very well worth checking out.

But I'm here for the porch sheets.

Gotta be honest - I didn't know "porch sheets" were a thing. Maybe it's an Ohio thing, or maybe it's a dirty Portland hippie thing of not creating extra laundry if necessary, but this practice is new to me. And like most things out of Ohio (flight, vacuum cleaners, James Garfield, Neil Armstrong, my cousin Steve - who actually, I think technically lives in Kentucky).... I LOVE IT!

This blog is replete with examples of social media projects that bring things offline and into the "real" world, and I especially love things that can be seen by a lot of people not connected directly to your social media pages. I'm sure there were plenty of passersby (neighbors, students, etc.) who were wondering why in the world so many houses had put up these sheets. (Just as it is in romance, so it is with social media projects - always leave 'em asking questions. Girls like the mysterious type. Or something like that, right?)

ANYWAY... this is a super fun idea, an easy way for students to get involved and show some school pride, a lovely little guerrilla marketing tactic to spread the word to a wider population, and all for the small price of a few extra bucks on a handful of students' meal cards. Not a bad trade off, I would say.

Well done, Flyers!