Page 287 - Social Media Marketing

Pets as Social Objects 265

Found Animals, based in Los Angeles, California (www.foundanimals.org), provides ■ ╇ B uild on E xisting S ocial O bjects
a great example of how a powerful social object—the love of pets and concern for
their care—combined with a thought-out presence and community participation—
come together to create a successful organization. Found Animals became an operat-
ing foundation in March 2008, hiring its first employee, Executive Director Aimee
Gilbreath, at that same time. The foundation is committed to increasing the rate and
quality of pet adoptions, thereby lowering pet euthanasia. To succeed, Found Animals
provides financial and business-model support to the Los Angeles municipal animal
care facilities with a focus on adoption, spay/neuter, microchipping, and licensing.
Clearly, the love, care, and concern for animals—of any type, especially “companion
animals”—is a natural, powerful social object around which a community can be
created.

I spoke with Andrew Barrett, Director of Marketing for Found Animals, about
how social media factored into the overall outreach and awareness programs.

“We have several key messages intended for current and future animal
adopters and we want our audience to trust us as their partner. These
messages include: adopt your pet, rather than going to a store, spay/
neuter your pet to prevent pet overpopulation, microchip your pet so
they can be returned if lost, and license your pet—it’s the law. We are
very active on Facebook and Twitter, and these channels have proven
excellent tools for us to reach our intended audience and bring aware-
ness to our programs and message in an efficient and popular method.
To achieve this, we have an internal, full-time digital-media program
coordinator responsible for the strategic and creative development and
implementation of our social marketing across all digital channels.”

Found Animals maintains an active Facebook presence in addition to its website:
I asked Andrew about the experience with Facebook:

“We have built a relationship with over 7,000 fans on Facebook. We
engage them through traditional uses of Facebook and social media:
polls, surveys, wall-post discussion, etc. Many times we use incentives to
increase participation, like gift cards for pet-related spending. Currently,
we are working to build on our social media success by developing met-
rics: comparing the amount of participation against the number of new
adoptions or current adopters who rely upon us as a direct result of our
social media program. We will also be measuring the impact of social
media on our other initiatives; spay/neuter services, microchipping, and
licensing.”