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Alice Coyle, managing editor of the GH New England Raynham unit, put out a call for reader pet photos, and boy, did she get a response.
But, I'll let her tell the story herself:
Q. How did you put the reader callout on your sites?
A: We had an amazing response to this reader call out. On March 2, I put it out there prominently on all 14 sites in the feature carousel. For the initial call out, we resurrected Frank Mulligan's disco chihuahua video and a couple of cute pet photos we had lying around, to grease the wheels and get the submissions flowing. As photos came in, I updated the story with the pet pictures submitted and created and related photo galleries featuring the entries. I also used a bunch of funny, reader grabbing headlines like "What no ferrets?! Send us your cute pet picture entries" and "Send us your cute pet pictures, yes rats, too! (with a featured shot of Momo the rat, of course), and "Is your hamster a ham? Send us your cute pet pictures."
Q. How many entries did you receive?
A: In total we had more than 70 entries, including folks who sent in photos of their pets who had passed away. We didn't use those -- only the live ones who could put the PETCO gift card prize to use, were entered.
Q: Why do you think you got such a good response?
A: Keeping it right in front of our viewers in the carousel on all the sites was key…the visibility really helped. Once the March 15 deadline for photo submissions had passed, I put up a slideshow featuring all of the entries -- which has153 views and growing…not too shabby. We also ran cute pet picture call out teases in the newspapers..most editors included them in their page 2 web rails during the contest.
Q: What was the print component to this project?
A: Last week we ran a full-page color spread in all nine newspapers featuring about 20 of the 70 entries….that was all space would allow.
Q: How did you keep it visible on your sites throughout the contest period?
A: We kept it ranked in the #4 spot in news now, so when it came out of the carousel, it was still very visible on the homepages. Each time I updated the story, it went back in the carousel, ranked in the #3 spot -- on the orphan sites the feature is static, so it went into that featured spot each time it was updated.
Alice Coyle, managing editor of the GH New England Raynham unit, put out a call for reader pet photos, and boy, did she get a response.
But, I'll let her tell the story herself:
Q. How did you put the reader callout on your sites?
A: We had an amazing response to this reader call out. On March 2, I put it out there prominently on all 14 sites in the feature carousel. For the initial call out, we resurrected Frank Mulligan's disco chihuahua video and a couple of cute pet photos we had lying around, to grease the wheels and get the submissions flowing. As photos came in, I updated the story with the pet pictures submitted and created and related photo galleries featuring the entries. I also used a bunch of funny, reader grabbing headlines like "What no ferrets?! Send us your cute pet picture entries" and "Send us your cute pet pictures, yes rats, too! (with a featured shot of Momo the rat, of course), and "Is your hamster a ham? Send us your cute pet pictures."
Q. How many entries did you receive?
A: In total we had more than 70 entries, including folks who sent in photos of their pets who had passed away. We didn't use those -- only the live ones who could put the PETCO gift card prize to use, were entered.
Q: Why do you think you got such a good response?
A: Keeping it right in front of our viewers in the carousel on all the sites was key…the visibility really helped. Once the March 15 deadline for photo submissions had passed, I put up a slideshow featuring all of the entries -- which has153 views and growing…not too shabby. We also ran cute pet picture call out teases in the newspapers..most editors included them in their page 2 web rails during the contest.
Q: What was the print component to this project?
A: Last week we ran a full-page color spread in all nine newspapers featuring about 20 of the 70 entries….that was all space would allow.
Q: How did you keep it visible on your sites throughout the contest period?
A: We kept it ranked in the #4 spot in news now, so when it came out of the carousel, it was still very visible on the homepages. Each time I updated the story, it went back in the carousel, ranked in the #3 spot -- on the orphan sites the feature is static, so it went into that featured spot each time it was updated.
Q: Did you do any other reader interaction with this project?
A: After narrowing the entries to six finalists March 15, I updated the story again with the photo collage featuring all six pets along with their individual photos, and added the cute pet picture poll to the story -- leaving it up to our readers to decide the winner. I tallied the votes today - at noon - and Remi was the winner.
Q: What else do you want to share about this project?
A: It was a very attractive package with a lot to look at…Fun stories with lots of photos, two photo galleries with more than 20 photos in each, a slideshow with music featuring all the entries, a sidebar introducing the finalists and the reader poll. There was a prize for this call out, but in retrospect, I don't think the PETCO gift card was even necessary….people just really love their pets and wanted them featured on our WL Web sites and in our newspapers.
'I would recommend it as a call out for any of the units, but caution that if you get the response I did, it is very time consuming. I decided to use my own e-mail for submissions so as not burden our already taxed EA and editors. Based on previous response to call outs, I figured we'd get a dozen or so entries…no big deal. Wrongo! If you have a Media/Web person who has the time to devote and do it up right, that's the best scenario. It was a lot of fun and probably could be done a couple of times a year."
