Join us on Friday Oct 16th – Sunday Oct 18th for the Bluegrass Bioneers Ultimate Sustainable Solutions Conference at the Rauch Planetarium on the University of Louisville main campus. Be there on Friday at 11am. The events are FREE and presented by Rauch Planetarium, the UofL Center for Environmental Education and BEcreative, a Louisville-based creative solutions entity dedicated to promoting sustainability through green media production, environmental education, and other creative content and services. Presentations will include YERT. Join YERT on Facebook. Bluegrass Bioneers Conference is hosted by the University of Louisville. Schedule of events.
Check out Trailer 1 from the new film by YERT:
Come learn about new ideas and sustainable solutions from Bluegrass Bioneers. There are small ways we can act locally to positive help the environment. One way is by supporting:
New Roots will present at the Bluegrass Bioneers conference on developing a just and sustainable food system in the Ohio River Valley region. They’re a nonprofit and work to provide healthier food alternatives particularly for those who live the West-end of Louisville. One of the ways they get fresh local food to Louisvillians is with Fresh Stop. Fresh Stop is a food buying cooperative and for $12 per week members get a plentiful amount of fresh food including local produce. Support them and join their Page on Facebook.
Motorize Your Bike™ will be part of the Bioneers conference. We’re a Louisville based organization that supports new modes of transportation. Our bikes minimize fuel consumption, get up to 150 miles per gallon and save people money. Our Motorized Bikes are safe, simple and fun. You can check us out on Facebook. Come for the events this weekend and get information about a fully assembled Motorized Bike or a Premium Bike Motor Kit.
The Keynote Presentations will start at 11am on Friday morning. Ben Sollee preforms with an exclusive lineup of talented musicians on Friday night at 7pm.
Case study about a local art festival, social media and word of mouth for an event and contest. The event was three days: Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the first weekend of October in Old Louisville, KY. The St. James Art Show averages 750 vendors and more than 300,000 visitors as one of the top art shows in the country. It’s a juried art show and vendors must be approved by a committee.
While we may not have exact statistics, (stats) because our goal was to determine social media usage, we were able to observe the majority of the attendee population (over 70%) were in their 40′s, 50′s, or 60′s and at least 60% were female.
The communication preceding and during the event plus the contest were attempts to determine the social media usage among this group including Twitter and Facebook plus their willingness to join two Facebook Pages -Motorize Your Bike and Gyros & Fries. Promotion began two days before the event. Each person who joined both Pages won a free Gyros (sandwich). This was our strongest and most direct call to action of the contest. Each person who learned about the contest through social media or word of mouth would (and still does) win free food.
The contest was focused around the two Facebook pages but Twitter was used as well. In addition to sending the Facebook invitation for the event and contest (with Google Maps), a separate Blog post listed prizes. The prizes included other food items from Nord’s Bakery on Preston (Nord’s Bakery Reviews on Yelp), who gained Facebook fans and exposure to new customers. Additional prizes were t-shirts, stickers and specialty root-beer from Motorize Your Bike. Posts on Twitter and Facebook were used to direct visitors to the Facebook event and the Blog post which listed prizes. Listings of the Blog post with prizes on StumbleUpon brought the highest traffic to the blog.
The flyers were each 1/4 of a sheet, double sided and printed on 100% recycled paper. One side featured the Motorize Your Bike logo and the Gyro’s & Fries logo was on the other side. Both sides had the same call to action with the logo side listed first: Become Facebook Fans of Motorize Your Bike and Gyro’s & Fries for a FREE Gyros w/this Coupon. On the Gyro’s and Fries side, we did an A/B test. Half the flyers included the call to action outlined to make a box around it similar to traditional print coupons also found in a newspaper or phonebook. Each call to action on the Gyro’s & Fries side also had an expiration date (another subtle call to action) in smaller font centered directly beneath the message. 400 of the 1000 flyers were black and white. 600 flyers were red and black graphics and print with a small amount of yellow and brown graphics for Gyro’s & Fries on white paper. The flyers and Facebook postings were key components of the word of mouth. By the second days, we had more than 15 requests for the flyers. It’s to early to determine the conversion rate of the flyers as the restaurant, Gyro’s & Fries, opens later this month. As this was posted the Motorize Your Bike Facebook Page had 58 fans from 1 prior to the event.
The findings were very interesting and are good news for local businesses. Over 1000 flyers, 100 stickers and 60 business cards were distributed. More than 72% of the respondents were on Facebook. Others requested flyers. Upon being asked, “are you on Facebook?” if they responded no, in many cases that also said, “I look at it with another person”. The “not on Facebook” responses came from about 10% of the total population and from those it was clear many have been regularly using Facebook through others, without an account – over the shoulder views. New Facebook users, from our feedback at this event, seem to have a stronger likelihood for over the shoulder views. As many as 2% of the total respondents who were not on Facebook said they would get on specifically to checkout these Pages, the motorized bikes or to get the free food. The Page for Motorize Your Bike has grown by over 50 new members since the event and Gyro’s & Fries has more than doubled its Fans. Awareness was created and both Pages are growing steadily, s0 this event was a success.
The response to “Do you use Twitter” was far different. Despite the awareness, the winning Twitter Hashtag was only used by our team. There were also a very limited number of posts on Twitter using St James related Hashtags. Of two hundred people asked about Twitter, a higher percentage (nearly twice as many) had never heard of it than were using it. Such a small percentage of the population, less than 10% were using Twitter. So the focus shifted to Facebook and trying to learn more about the over the shoulder views.
As active Twitter users with a background in search marketing:Twitter.com/Rasinenand with a new profile for Motorize Your BikeIt’s very clear as amazingly searchable as Twitter is, it has serious limitations and barriers of entry. First the name. In asking people who did not use Twitter, if they were older macho type guys, it was generally fun to get the response. The facial expressions were worthy of pictures and framed versions for their loved ones. Comedy aside, Twitter is a valuable tool that we use for many purposes and often as people ask us to describe why they would want to use it, they respond with feedback about having no use for such features. Personally, I’d like to see everyone on Twitter so we could share and search useful information. As we branch into new subgroups of users and focus on geo-targeting, the findings are very surprising. Twitter is dependent upon the users, frequency of posts by the users, how/where users post and the data. If folks are not using Twitter prior to or at an event or not specially mentioning the it, how could any of the corresponding data be searched? Hashtags are understood by surprisingly few Twitter users and avoided all together by many others. Links, geo-targeting, and real-time search are only possible if Twitter users understand and are share the data. Denser populations and subcultures are what seem be the strong suits of Twitter. After this contest it was interesting to the go and look at the profile pictures of followers on Twitter.
Motorized Bike with Traffic Safety Officer
Very few attendees were noticed seemingly using social media or texting from a mobile device or phone (less than 2%). Maybe the event was just that exciting? Also very few, less than 1% of attendees were talking on the phone. Therefore, much of the current mobile advertising centered around search would be ineffective in reaching this audience. One good way to advertise through a mobile device or phone at an event such as St James might be through a zoom app or other camera application on a mobile phone. Cameras were very popular and seemingly more so than at this event the previous year. Pictures were taken of the motorized bikes with large professional cameras down to flip phones. Feel free to add those to ourFacebook Pagefor a chance to win a lucky prize.
We atMotorize Your Bike™ hope this was interesting and informative. While our background includes market research, we like to keep it simple and fun – like out motorized bikes. Please take a moment and vote in out Poll below then check back soon for more data. You’re also personally invited to join and comment on our Facebook Group & Page.
St. James Art Show is this weekend, Oct. 2- 4th in the Old Louisville neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky. This a link to a site with a slide show of pictures from last years event in 2008: St. James Art Show It’s also a great time for you to join us and check out new ideas in Old Louisville.
We’re having a Small Batch Rootbeer tasting on Sunday afternoon. Fresh Rootbeer on Tap from the Keg. You’ll know you’re in the right place when you find the Official Motorize Your Bike logo Pumpkin so keep your eyes open, it’s a good sized Pumpkin. You’re also welcome to contact us for more details at: freedom@motorizeyourbike.com
Contest: with Three ways to Win at St James this Weekend!
1. Find a Motorize Your Bike team member wearing the logo shirt with Flyers and information. The Flyers featuring the Words: “Bike Motor Kits” blacked out Win a Prize. Ask any Team Member for Details or shoot us a message. Motorize Your Bike
2. Post Photos or Video on our Motorize Your Bike Facebook Page during St. James. Winners chosen during and after the St James Art Show based on creativity and randomly. Here is the Page for Posting Photos and Video: Motorize Your Bike – Facebook
3. During the show (Tweet) include in your Twitter Posts (Tweets) the hashtag: #bikestjames with Photos or Text to Win. Example: Twitter Post with winning hashtag You can also add us on Twitter here: @MotorizedBike
Prizes: include Food, unique T-shirts and other surprises…
Tasty Doughnuts from our friends at Nord’s Bakery on Preston. Any Doughnut of your choice including the Bacon Long John with Maple Icing – aka the “Piggyback”. Each of their Doughnuts is fantastic! Fans of Nord’s Bakery – Facebook Nord’s Bakery
Gyros & Fries Louisville - Downtown Delivery
Fresh cut Gyros from Gyros & Fries. The best Gyros in Louisville Delivered & formerly know as Omar’s Gyros (Bardstown Rd.) Also add them as a Fan on their Facebook Page for other Prizes and Discounts. This is the link to their Facebook Page: Gyros & Fries – Facebook
Motorize Your Bike T-shirt
Cool T-shirts including small adult sizes, Stickers and more from Motorize Your Bike. This is the link to our Facebook Page: Motorize Your Bike – Facebook Page
Louisville, KY has new bike maps even before San Francisco! (thanks! @chrispeluso) You can now plan a route with Ride The City and choose between a direct route, safe route and safer route. The maps will let you know if the route is on city streets, bike paths, bike lanes or greenways. It gives distance and forecasts total estimated time. Additionally, the maps indicate locations near the route which offer bike sales and service and bike rentals.
These are findings and observations from testing this bike map tool in Louisville. The route I chose was from Sunergos Coffee on Preston to Cycler’s Cafe on Lexington. The intent was to use one location which offers bike sales and service and another location which offers alternate products and services. Also of interest were city streets and if we would receive multiple routes based on safety. Cycler’s Cafe was indicated as the destination with a red stop sign outline and the bike sales and service icon overlay. Three other bike shops were indicated including Bardstown Rd Bicycles with a capital “R” to indicate they rent bicycles and Parkside Boutique which was the next closest on the route. This route would be great on a motorized bicycle as well. Below is a screenshot and the link for Ride the City. Simply change the city after the backslash if you’re looking for a bike route outside of Louisville. Whether it’s a road bike, mountain bike, bmx, or motorized bike, enjoy the ride!
