The Social Element of Extreme Makeover

The last several weeks I've been hard at work supporting on of my clients, Bob Cook Homes, while they go through the process that most people see in a scant hour of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. One of the big parts of making this home come together quickly was the power of social media. In fact, one of the local newspapers noticed wrote a short article about the topic.

Everyone always wants to know how you measure the effects of social media. Here are the bare numbers of this particular campaign -

From the 17th to February 24 (during the build):

• 82 Twitter posts which garnered 131 RT & 2235 clicks.

• 119 FaceBook updates which produced 329 'likes' and 199 comments.
  Plus approx 500 new fans & 3238 visits to the extreme website.

• 5 blog posts to date have had 2193 views and growing
  

• 5 email blasts that had an average of 57% open rate and 49% click through rate.

Those are pretty darn good numbers - some would question, however, is that a good measurement?

The real measure is what happened as a result of the above. With all the social we were able to get workers to the right place when needed, get fabric transported from other states by volunteers to the build in Wichita, get extra siding on the site in under an hour, deliver enough beverages to the site in a single day that the crew never had a problem finding their favorite drink from that day forward. Just to name a few real life examples.

Could the same be accomplished in other business situations? Absolutely IF the same amount of time & effort are put into it. I've had similar successes on a smaller scale, a direct correlation to the amount of time involved.

So the big reveal is over, at least for those of us in Wichita KS. Our work is pretty much done. The rest of the country will get to see the hard work of the volunteers and Bob Cook's awesome team sometime in May.