DavisWiki always can use more Free Community Advertising

People looking to help out have a wide variety of resources available, although many (like stickers and fliers) need to be continually replenished. Fliers can be printed with pocket change, and a group can get together and fund a sticker run. Keep in mind that all aspects of the wiki need your help.

Resources for Outreach

Outreach Targets

If the early adopters are already here how do we get a larger user base and more diverse representation of the community? Let's list some potential audiences that could be approached:

  • Chamber of Commerce/Downtown Business Association - but we need to be prepared for businesses discovering their reviews and disagreeing with them.
    • They need to understand that this is a community resource and not the business' resource. This is why we should not market the wiki toward businesses themselves — smart business owners understand this, though. Davis Wiki is already on http://www.davisdowntown.com/.
  • Davis Senior Center, they have computer classes
  • Schools, if we can clean up the language a bit - the wiki represents a great living textbook for many grade levels in "understanding the community you live in" and "local history" - also a great chance to teach and demonstrate information ethics.
  • Townies in general! The non-student population!

2007 Advertising Drive

Fliering

Farmers Market

Swag

Shirts, stickers, etc.

Bike Advertising

Anybody want to make Wheelee Ads style inserts for their bikes? You can advertise on campus and downtown all you want that way without having to worry about any permits.

2010 Advertising Drive

Fliering

I think a new promotion drive is in order. I will be making some fliers using the following template:

Here are the prototypes. Going up today:

And inserting curiosity-provoking slogans such as the following:

"Wait, there's a $1 movie night in Davis?" "There were wild river otters living in Davis?" "Where can I stable my horse?" "What is cactus corners?" "What is happening in town this week?" "There's an insect zoo in Davis? And it's FREE?" "Who found my dog?" "Where are the 10 cleanest bathrooms in town?" "Why are there chickens all over the place?" "Who is open after 10:00 p.m. in this town, anyway?" "There's a guy in town who makes personal hovercraft?" "There's a guy in town who makes a rocket car?" "Who is selling cheap pints tonight?" "Who is having a trivia night tonight?" "Why does my tap water look like coca cola?" "Where did they keep the radioactive dachshunds?"

If there are any interesting "tidbit" type of facts the wiki provides about the town that would fit into a flier format, suggestions would be appreciated.

  • The "Know more than the locals" one seems a bit insulting. It also feels to me like it feeds the unfortunate stereotype that the Wiki is associated with UCD or is just for UCD students. -jw
    • That's why they go to their target audience: UC Davis students and near student apartment housing. Given that they're just coming back for spring semester, the timing is perfect. -Ed

I just looked at the weather reports - I think I'll wait for the rain storms to pass before hanging any of these. They'll just get wet. - Ed

Comments:

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2007-04-05 00:02:53   I could table sometime at the farmer's market.. we should get some computers out there though. Just because. —DavidPoole

2007-04-05 05:23:00   Contact me, I'd be up for it. If it was a combination demo with LUGOD, we could probably use the LUGOD demo machine. —NickSchmalenberger

That might be pretty awesome, I do indeed also support linux. I would like to also throw support to the new wikispot.org deal as well, can we get anymore tech awareness into this deal? ~DavidPoole

2008-04-12 14:13:37   Does anyone man a booth at Picnic Day? What a way to reach out to the community and alumni of the university... —BrandonBarrette

You have to sign up a while in advance. As far as I know, people have suggested the idea but nobody's stepped up to follow-through with it.

  • I figured it was too late, but its something to think about for next year... Maybe even possible to get donations for WikiSpot with all the alumni there. You know, provide methods for them to donate on the spot or via online link when they get home. Alumni like to open up their pockets if they see how it will benefit the community and university.

2008-04-12 16:37:13   As a Wikivangelist, I would like to fulfill my duty by helping spread the gospel that is Davis Wiki. In all seriousness, if we plan on tabling at an event or the Farmers Market or whatever, I'm down to help out. Just let me know. It's great way to publicize Davis Wiki, but it's also an opportunity to meet and chat with each other. —CurlyGirl26

2008-04-12 17:17:21   Same here with the Farmers Market... I am there a lot anyways. —BrandonBarrette

2009-05-15 09:24:56   How about encouraging businesses, musical acts, organizations, apartment complexes, course instructors, or anyone to mention their stuff as in "as seen on DavisWiki! If you like what you see, please leave a comment on DavisWiki.org"... this might lead to biased reviews at first, but it would hopefully end up drawing a lot more people into the wiki and eventually getting them to add content on other wiki topics. Even just a little sticker that says "As seen on DavisWiki.org" (inspired by the "As Seen on TV" things) might be popular. —TheAmazingLarry

2010-01-13 11:28:57   I'm thinking up some better "curiosity provoking" slogans for some new fliers I'm designing. The fliers will follow the standard format of the one sentence flier (http://daviswiki.org/Wiki_Flyer?action=Files&do=view&target=oneSentenceFlyer.gif) but instead of slogans, they will contain questions that might provoke the curious to go to the site for details. A few I have thought up, off the top of my head: "Wait, there's a $1 movie night in Davis?" "There were wild river otters living in Davis?" "Where can I stable my horse?" "What is cactus corners?" "What is happening in town this week?" "There's an insect zoo in Davis? And it's FREE?"

Do ya'll think it's time for another promotional campaign? —EdwardNiemand

2010-01-13 13:04:57   Good ideas for poster/flyers! I'd recommend using a program like inkscape (very easy to use) along with the .svg or .pdf files of the wiki logo. —PhilipNeustrom

  • Ha, you noticed all I have is mspaint to make these fliers. Gawd it sucks. Took me 93875 hours to shoop it. Unfortunately, my copy of photoshop doesn't work with windows 7. What an unfortunate time to upgrade. —EdwardNiemand

2010-01-13 16:02:55   "Where are the 10 cleanest bathrooms in town?" "Why are there chickens all over the place?" "Who is open after 10:00 p.m. in this town, anyway?" "There's a guy in town who makes personal hovercraft?" "There's a guy in town who makes a rocket car?" "Who is selling cheap pints tonight?" "Who is having a trivia night tonight?" "Why does my tap water look like coca cola?" "Where did they keep the radioactive dachshunds?"

—EdwardNiemand

2010-01-13 22:01:55   Non-vectorized logo looks craptastic, does nobody have an original? —KellyM

Yeah, SVG, PDF, etc on wiki logo

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