Carol Doane top finalist in Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards

Every two minutes someone in Western Washington needs a blood transfusion. Sean Debutts, Social Media Coordinator at Puget Sound Blood Center, sent a direct message to Twitter follower Carol Doane to secure Doane as a champion to spearhead a blood drive. Carol Doane, the Advertising Sales Manager and Social Media Strategist at The Columbian Newspaper in Vancouver, Washington, quickly agreed.

Doane's social media campaign and resulting blood donation event placed her as a top finalist for the Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards in The Scrappy & Engaged Award category. Winners will be announced after the Portland, Oregon InnoTech Conference. InnoTech is a business and technology innovation conference and expo sponsored by top brands IBM, Microsoft, Integra Telecom, Advanced Systems Group, Smarsh, MSI and others. Besides Portland, InnoTech conferences are also taking place in Austin, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The Scrappy & Engaged category salutes best brand awareness/user engagement for under $500. Doane dubbed her campaign, "Carol's Save A Life Birthday Party," and estimated the cost at $14.99, the cost of a birthday cake. As part of her submission she created a SlideShare to describe the event, http://www.slideshare.net/TheClassicCarol/carols-save-a-life-birthday-party. "A crew of social media enthusiasts in Texas and beyond were the SoMe Awards judges," reports Sean Lowery, Executive Director of the InnoTech Conference which is spotlighting the awards.

"Social media is very personal and this campaign struck a chord for me," says Carol Doane. "I have an innate curiosity to see if I can drive people out from behind their computers to share a cup of coffee and many will, but this project asked them to extend past surface conversation and participate in a needle-in-the-arm way."

Sean Debutts, the initiator of the direct message that launched Doane's participation notes, "Carol deserves the honor after all the hard work she put into her drive and all the visibility she gave the concept."

The Puget Sound Blood Center maintains eleven donation centers in Washington and continues to benefit from Doane's efforts. "For an hour the SlideShare I created to describe the campaign was Hot on Twitter and featured on SlideShare's Health and Medicine category," notes Carol Doane. "It's all these little wins that makes diving into social media fun."

What's next on the agenda for the Social Media Strategist? "The hardest part now," she muses, "Is explaining what a social media award is to my parents." 

Social media is an all encompassing term for the mixing of technology and social interaction to add value to the community. The SoMe Awards honor the best social media projects, programs and campaigns in the Pacific Northwest. The SoMe event takes place at the prestigious Multnomah Athletic Club, 1849 SW Salmon Street, Portland, Oregon 97205, Thursday, May 7, 2010 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Registration is $20 and includes two drinks and dessert. Event registrations are accepted online: http://ow.ly/1FZ1s

Information about the awards can be found on the SoMe website: http://www.someawards.com/

Award categories include:

• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (over $25k) – The Sugar Daddy Award 
• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (under $25k) – The People Like Me Award
• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (under $500) – The Scrappy & Engaged Award
• Best ROI (over $25k) – The Rich Get Richer Award
• Best ROI (under $25k) – The Keep Your Job Award
• Best ROI (under $500) – The Soon-to-Be Wealthy Award
• Best Social Media App – The Next Big Thing Award
• Best Agency – The House Party Award
• People’s Choice Award
• Best in Show

Congratulations, Carol!

Carol Doane blogs about life and writing on pearlofcarol.com and as @TheFirstCarol on Twitter. She also blogs on business themes at 360Convos.blogspot.com and as @TheClassicCarol on Twitter.