13 Year Old Finds Friends…some of them Furry!

Warning: This article may cause feelings of compassion and a desire to click “LIKE” at www.facebook.com/likefurryfriends

Thanks to the workings of Tyler Gingrich (13), the Furry Friends Cat Shelter in Barrie is getting a lot more recognition. And deservedly so. This is an entirely volunteer run cat shelter with a no-kill policy. All of their funding and staffing is from volunteers and private donors.

Tasked with a school project to “make a difference”, my son Tyler immediately knew that he wanted to help animals and quickly honed in on Furry Friends. With a little guidance from Mom and Dad, Tyler quickly put together his very own Social Media Marketing campaign.

One of the many ways to volunteerI was amazed at just how quickly he got up to speed with the tools of Social Media and got a Facebook page and Twitter account. To schedule his posts, he uses Hootsuite. As Tyler says: “It was on the harder side of easy, but it was still pretty easy.”

To help drive traffic, he printed “Like Furry Friends” stickers which he gave out at each classroom at his school. To further reinforce the message, he created T-Shirts with iron-on transfers. Both of these ideas are great examples of how our offline marketing can stimulate online results.

What Tyler (and Dad) found really cool was when we no longer recognized the people who were clicking on his “Like Furry Friends” Facebook page. The campaign went beyond our immediate circles…way cool!

On a personal note, this project for school quickly became more than a marketing experiment to me when I saw Tyler’s post:

Let’s Hope Ebony Makes It!“the first time I went to Furry Friends this cat, Ebony, was by far one of my most favourite kittens there. I was really excited to show her to my partners the third time I went. It’s unfortunate that she is now very sick and may not make it…”

If you like cats (or animals, period.) check out what’s happening at: www.facebook.com/likefurryfriends …you might just learn something about social media marketing and about a really worthy cat shelter named “Furry Friends”.

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