Making hackathons more inclusive, pt2.
By: Paul Wilshaw
Tags: Event Planning, Design, Hackathons, Marketing, Technology

Testing engagement using different platforms

Sometimes the best way to find out what works is to try a few things. I created a number of methods across different platforms of delivery to increase engagement for hackathons in general.

Podcasts

A short podcast about hackathons and my personal experiences; attending, organising and judging them.

Using my existing Podcast channel talking about hackathons and my own experiences with them. Note, if you’re planning to do a podcast with someone else make sure you get them to complete a concent form. Something like this one is great, Podcast guest release form template.

The main purpose of this podcast is to support social media campaigns with rich media accessible to different audiences and by other means, such as smart speakers and music streaming services.

Using rich media, such as Podcasts can increase engagement rates upto three times than that of text only posts (Venkatachari, 2013).

You could experiment with episodic content and a live broadcast during the hackathon itself. Podcasts are also a great way to reach different audiences over the more visual platforms of Instagram, Snapchat, Pintrest and TikTok — which are based around images and short-form videos. Remember if your images have any text on them be sure to provide alt-text. For more information about alt-text and inclusivity in social media, visit https://blog.hootsuite.com/inclusive-design-social-media/

An example tweet of the Podcast to gain interest.

Instagram teaser campaign

Different social media channels have different audiences, as such demand alternative treatments to engage their respective audiences.

According to Statista, 35% of US teens rate Instagram as their favorite social network, second only to Snapchat. In terms of gender, 43% of women use Instagram while 31% of men use it.

Instagram audience demographics (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/)

Learn to automate Instagram posts, in alternative colours to test response rates.

Learn to automate Instagram post — more pictorial, in alternative colours to test response rates.

Twitter teaser campaign

The gender breakdown for Twitter users among US adults shows that 24% of men use Twitter while 21% of women use the platform. Within the platform on an international basis, the breakdown is 66% men and 34% women.

Twitter audience demographics (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/)

Hackathon Twitter posts — using different videos posts to test response rates.

A social registration page to capture how the attendee found out about the hackathon and how they’d prefer to be kept informed.

Post registration

After registering the intention is to give the attendee as much pre-event information as possible. This includes a PDF to download with how the attendees can participate in the hackathon.

Example PDF welcome pack, cover

Example PDF welcome pack, introduction — outlining the expectation on participants.

Example PDF welcome pack, introduction — defining the brief that participants should solve.

Example PDF welcome pack, outlining the participants journey — creating output.

Example PDF welcome pack, outlining the participants journey — learning pathway.