Arbor Day Foundation Joins Facebook: Plant A Tree!
Posted by Katie Farrar on Thu, Apr 03, 2008 @ 12:52 AM
Arbor Day Foundation has
recently added a cool application to Facebook to tap into the social media
network and spread the word about planting trees. With National Arbor Day coming up on April 25th
I think this is a great way to promote the Arbor Day Foundation message and tap
into the growing demographic that is using social media sites every day.
Some of you may be reading this thinking, “Facebook? Isn’t
that site for college kids who post embarrassing pictures of themselves that
they don’t want their bosses/parents to see?”
Granted, there are lots of college students who use Facebook but it’s
also emerging as one of THE social networking sites for corporations and
businesses to take advantage of.
According to Forrester 1/3 of the users are professionals of some kind, less
than half of Facebook users are still in college, and the fastest growing
demographic is 25+.
Here’s how Tree Planter works: You purchase a virtual tree for $1 and Arbor
Day will plant a real tree in a real national forest for each tree you “purchase”
and send to a friend. You can also
invite your friends to join in the fun and install the Tree Planter application
on their own Facebook page and pass along the message. The goal is to plant 1,000,000 trees, and
Arbor Day has teamed up with Toyota who is footing the bill for the first
50,000 trees planted. The application
was added at the beginning of March and has already planted 19,073 trees.
Some Cool features of the application include:
- A wide variety of tree species and other wild life to
choose from to send to your friends
- An updated “Leaderboard” with top tree givers in the nation and also divided
up into any “groups” you belong to
- A very easy way to select friends from your network to
invite to use the application and gift trees to their network
A few recommendations to Arbor Day to make the Tree Planter
even better:
- Take advantage of the blog and create more fresh content to
get people excited about coming to visit and download the application
- Jazz up the Arbor Day Foundation Facebook page, (which is
different from the Tree Planter page) and utilize some of the feeder
applications to promote the fresh blog content and promote the Tree Planter
- How about creating a link or blurb about the Tree Planter
on the Arbor Day website? Could be a
great way to let more people know about it
Overall I think the Tree Planter is a great idea to spread a
worthwhile and important message. When I
installed it and planted trees for my friends I felt like I was doing something
good for the environment and helping make a difference. Plus it’s fun to pick out the different trees
and wildlife to send out to all your connections.
If you haven’t joined Facebook
yet I would encourage you to check it out and get involved in all of the
interesting things people are passing along.
If nothing else you may find out what your old high school or college
crush is up to these days, right? J
Do you use Facebook to connect? What other fun applications and viral promotions
have you seen or used? Feel free to
share your experiences and comments below.
Look forward to hearing from you!