A guest post from reddit's summer intern Josh Irwin (jamsbyjosh)
As summer comes to an end, some of us return to our daily lives of surfing reddit while in class back at school. This summer, I have had the privilege of interning with the reddit team out here in San Francisco, assisting with marketing, sales and what ever else was needed; luckily no coffee runs. My main project this summer was to design a College Marketing Campaign that would help spark the college subreddit community. Although many schools already have fully functioning subreddit communities, there are several that appear to be dead, or worse, fail to exist at all. Some schools have developed communities rallying behind their sports teams, others simply oriented around the student body, and while not every school has a top 20 athletic team, every school does have students, and all students have something to say, so why not get them on reddit.
Check the current list of college subreddits here, and add yours or PM hueypriest to have your school added.
We are launching a global wide competition to see which school can grow their college subreddit community the most. The old school users may remember when reddit did a similar contest for subreddits. The prizes will be awarded to the top three schools that gain the most in popularity over the allotted contest time on three different scales.
Prize 1: Best Percentage Growth
- School colors on reddit front page for a day with mascot as reddit alien
- Large box of mascot designed alien stickers
- Large poster customized to your school
- Large box of school’s subreddit QR code stickers
- Possible meetup hosted at your school by a reddit admin(s).
Prize 2: Best Absolute Growth
- School colors on reddit front page for a day with mascot as reddit alien
- Large box of mascot designed alien stickers
- Large box of school’s subreddit QR code stickers
- Possible meetup hosted at your school by a reddit admin(s).
Prize 3: Admin Choice Award
- School colors on reddit front page for a day with mascot as reddit alien
- Medium box of mascot designed alien stickers
- Medium box of school’s subreddit QR code stickers
- Possible meetup hosted at your school by a reddit admin(s).
The popularity of a college subreddit will be assessed in three ways:
Absolute Growth: traffic growth (50%), activity growth (40%), and subscriber growth (10%).
Percentage Growth: Growth in number of subscribers to college subreddit in ratio to the school's undergrad enrollment.
Admin Choice Award: will be given to the college subreddit community that the reddit admins enjoy the most. This can be through design, content, activity or even just one amazing post that will make us all laugh.
Any school may enter the competition. To do so, anyone that goes to a specific school must post the school name and link to the subreddit to HERE. On August 26th the number of subscribers for each subreddit will be logged as the starting point for the competition. The competition will go from August 26th at 10:00 AM PST until September 30th 10:00 AM PST.
Promote your reddit page any way you please… make flyers around campus, send out facebook messages, hire/borrow a blimp, and do what ever it takes, because we all know everyone wants their mascot & school colors on the front page of reddit.
Let the games begin! And lets see who can become…the top college subreddit.
