August 2022 marketing campaign

Continuing the discussion from Marketing team meeting June 24th:

Below is the general idea I had for how I think we can pursue a marketing campaign for promoting contributions.

What kind of structure will this project have?

First, we take one month to prepare for the next. Continuing with this EPEL example, which I think we should just do as our first go around, we take the month of July to prepare the content for August. It gives us time to do the work and get our ducks in a row without setting any expectations in the broader community before we’re ready.

Second, we choose three pieces of content to put out for the month. This could be something as small as a tweet to as big as a blog post. We can work on unique ways to present the needs of the EPEL team. Then in the month when the content gets published, we’ll have three opportunities throughout the month to highlight this need.

How do we make this happen?

Since there are three main people who seem to be the most focused on marketing right now, each of us can bring one thing to the table. It can be whatever we want, but we may want to check in with each other to see if we’re too similar to other ideas. We make sure everything is ready to go by July 31 and then coordinate with the appropriate channel owners to post the content we prepared.

Is that it?

Yup. At least in my opinion this should be. It’s a relatively basic plan, but I think that if we run one campaign and feel like this workflow works for us, then replicating it for the next month and the month after that will be easier. If it doesn’t work out, it is what it is, but I think it’s worth a shot.

In summary, we take a month to come up with three engaging pieces of content about the EPEL team that will be posted at spaced out intervals over the course of the following month.

What do we think?

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This is exciting! Hopefully the basic framework will then be easier for people who want to help but aren’t sure what to do to fit into, and we’ll be able to make a gigantic snowball effect.

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Further context for EPEL

For those of us in the marketing team who are less familiar with EPEL, Fedora has some great documentation on it. We also have good insight from @tdawson in our ticket for EPEL marketing that give us more context on where the need is. The main thing they need is actually contributors - not users.

Content Proposal #1: Tweet?

Here’s a tweet we can start the “series” with. I’m not happy with it, but I figure a simple call to action will get the job done and preface the two other things we want to post.

Do you use EPEL packages in your day to day? Consider giving back by helping with packaging and maintenance! EPEL has millions of users who would be grateful for the community support. :slight_smile:

I’m not the most confident about it, but I just want to get the ball rolling.

Content Proposal #2: Blog post

I have an idea of writing a blog post that could look like a Q&A to show where EPEL is at right now and what the specific need is. Troy mentioned the business case for dedicating resources to supporting EPEL, which I think could also work as blog post that throws the idea out there for the broader FOSS community to discuss.

Any other ideas for blog posts would be helpful. As long as the scope isn’t crazy and we can get our heads around it, we’re good.

Content Proposal #3: ???

No idea what the third thing can be. Let’s think one up! May be another tweet or maybe something discussion oriented, like linking to Discussion topic that begs an interesting EPEL-related question? Ideas welcome.

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I like the idea for the Blog Post of it being a QandA series that address what the need for EPEL is and where they are currently at. I think it is a great way to further inform what we are promoting.

My idea for-
Content Proposal #3 can be on another social media channel as well. Instagram and linkedin possibly?

  • Tweet can also include the blog post link to give more information
  • Instagram: Slide Post?
    Caption: Fedora’s EPEL is looking for contributors for support within the community
    • Image 1: Include a dedicated title slide to the new Campaign Series?
    • Image 2: We can have the EPEL logo and below it have the question “Do you use EPEL packages in your day to day?”, similar to the tweet, so all the social media posts are cohesive
  • Linkedin: Link to the blog post

  • Facebook: Link to blog post

What do you think @joseph @x3mboy ?

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We don’t own, and don’t know who owns the LinkedIn page, but for the rest I’m +1

What about an interview for the Podcast?
Or maybe a YouTube video?

Yes I like the idea of including a podcast and YouTube dedicated to the series as well.

I am thinking both should be a further deep in dive of the blog questions.

YouTube: We shoule have a dedicated Video Thumbnail- To identify all similar videos that promote Fedora Teams

We can maybe record one Video call to use that we sill upload on both Youtube and Podcast?

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If we can organize an interview for the podcast I think that would be cool, but I don’t think we’ll have as much luck with a YouTube video unless someone with experience can help us with the production. There’s already another thread for a YouTube video but it seems to have cooled down.

@isagordillo I like the idea of posting on Instagram also!

So besides a potential podcast episode the main thing I need to work on the blog post. Alright, time to actually do this rather than just thinking about it, lol.

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I’ve been out of town for a week, so I’ve not been able to comment until now.

I’d talked to a couple other EPEL Steering Committee members and they were thinking of doing a survey. Have it run all of August.

August we’ll also have two different conferences that we will be talking about EPEL. At Fedora Nest I’ll be giving a “State of EPEL” presentation (Virtual). Carl George and I will also be giving a “State of EPEL in CentOS” presentation (Live/Recorded) at the CentOS Dojo.

We would like to promote the survey, and any other marketing campains that we have at those presentations.

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Fantastic! The marketing campaign is to increase awareness about EPEL and trying to show potential contributors why it’s worthwhile. Having something like a survey would be a great call to action. You get greater insight and it serves as a first step for someone who could be interested in working on EPEL.

I looked up the dates for the upcoming talks you mentioned just for reference. We got a little more incentive to get this done, haha.

  • Nest with Fedora: Thu - Sat, Aug 4-6
  • CentOS Dojo: Thu, Aug 25

Will you guys be putting together the survey and we get a link to pass around or do you want us to help with this? Just asking so we know who owns what and things don’t accidentally fall through the cracks.


Content Update

This is what we’re looking at so far. I’m adding the two events so we can keep them in mind when “publishing” the other things we would like to do.

Just a thought, but I think the survey should be completed first so that we can link to it in all the events and pieces of content.

  1. EPEL survey
  2. State of EPEL talk at Nest with Fedora (with survey available)
  3. Tweet from official Fedora account (with a link to the survey I would think)
  4. Podcast episode at some point
  5. Blog post at some point
  6. State of EPEL talk at CentOS Dojo

We have our work cut out for us, lol.


Action Items

Survey:
@tdawson, let us know what you are thinking for the survey so we can start on that and/or support.

Podcast episode:

  • @x3mboy, what do you need in order to make the podcast episode happen? Should we come up with a list of questions? Let us know how we can support.
  • @tdawson or @carlwgeorge, would one or both of you be available for an podcast interview sometime between now and next month? I expect Eduard will be driving this, but I want to ask as of now for scheduling purposes if we can get this to work.

Blog post:
I own this as of now, but I’m still trying to figure out what to write that adds to any discussions going on within EPEL instead of rehashing what will already be discussed this month. I am also limited by my lack of technical skill so I don’t want to talk above my pay grade. I hope I can make something work, lol. If anyone else would like to write something instead, I am open to that also.

I will be around the next couple of weeks for a podcast. I think @carlwgeorge will be also.

I will be meeting with the Red Hat EPEL employees (CPE team members) on Monday (July 25 15:00UTC) to talk about the survey. I could get you an invite if you or any of the other Fedora Marketing people wanted to attend. If any other EPEL Committee members want to attend also, let me know.

I’m working during that time, but I should be able to jump on unless something work-related pulls me away. If it’s ok for me to drop off at 15:30 UTC, then I would like to join if only to learn more about EPEL.

If I can’t join, the main thing that comes to my mind is to add a call to action at the end of the survey as well. If they just answered a bunch of questions about EPEL but aren’t contributing themselves, asking them if they would like to with appropriate links on where to start could be a great opportunity.

@joseph I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to find a way to send you a private message with the meeting link. Can you send me an email at tdawson@redhat.com

I sent you an email, but in case you see this first, my email is josephgayoso@gmail.com.

Discourse DMs are disabled for this forum, but I should probably add other contact details in my bio, :sweat_smile:.

For now, a timeslot with the interviewees and a draft of the interview, that I will start this afternoon (my TZ UTC-4).

Re: Podcast episode

Mostly to @x3mboy.

Here are some of the questions I’ve been thinking about for the interview. I figure there will be one part where we’re covering more introductory information and then the second part will be more of a discussion. Should we outline like an agenda? What do you recommend?
EPEL Interview Show Notes

I’ve been listening to previous presentations on EPEL and I would like to try to take the conversation in a new direction that hasn’t already been covered. Specifically, the latest interview I found was with the excellent @itguyeric and his cohost Brian Smith. It could be worth (re)listening to - I finished listening to it today. Maybe there’s something we can add?
Demystifying EPEL | Red Hat Enterprise Linux Presents 29

From a scheduling standpoint, I’m in EDT (UTC-4). For this (assuming I’m in it? I don’t want to assume, lol) as long as it’s after office hours I’m good. That may be tough, though.

Lastly, I assume you know what we should have for like the setup? I’ve never done anything like a podcast. Will we basically just jump on a call and you have all the recording things to make the magic happen?

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I really like the questions you have for the interview! I think they are thorough enough for everyone to understand and familiarize themselves with EPEL.

Looks like you have enough questions to have a long enough podcast. I think longer podcasts are always better than shorter, but that might just be a personal opinion.

I think the Hackmd looks good to follow as an outline for the interview, or what do you mean for an agenda?

I think it would be good to outline an agenda for the Monthly Campaigns podcasts and posts in general, that way we have a timeline of when people should expect new content.

I don’t know if the Fedora Podcast has a certain structure it should follow, but I am also a fan of longer podcasts. For planning purposes, I would like it to be between 30-60 minutes of duration. We’ll see what happens, lol.

Similar to the above point, I’m not sure if there are already set things like having an intro, going through a few details first, covering the meat of the episode, and then doing some kind of sign off. I have ideas of what we can do, but I want to take Eduard’s lead because he’s worked on this before.

This sounds interesting. What do you think this could look like? For something like this, I think your idea about this being branded in some way makes sense. Otherwise, you don’t have a way to identify the thing that supposedly has a schedule.

The usual idea is to conduct it like a conversation, but tends to be a questionnaire: “This Year In Fedora Script” and “FFmpeg in Fedora 36 Script”

I’m creating this: Fedora Podcast interview about EPEL - HackMD for us to create the script

Thanks for setting it up, Eduard! I added in my notes and a general structure I think we can follow. This first episode may be experimental (like this whole campaign idea), but I’m excited for it.

EPEL team - we can have some links to resources for EPEL in the show notes. If you want, please provide the following details that you would like to include so we can make sure to add them.

  • Link to point of contact’s details if provided (if you want, understandable to not want to be pinged for everything, haha)
  • Insert link to main EPEL IRC/Matrix channel
  • Insert link to main EPEL long-form discussion channel, whether it’s in Fedora Discussion or a mailing list

Also, here is a WhenIsGood to schedule the interview. Just select the times that work best for you over the next two weeks and hopefully we can make this happen! Sorry that it’s after hours but otherwise it’d be hard to carve out time to record properly. Last, since we’re all in the Western Hemisphere, the schedule is in EDT. UTC breaks my brain so I figured this is easier.
http://whenisgood.net/jk5jzwn

If Eduard, myself, and one representative from the EPEL team can find a time, we’re good to go, but other team members are also welcome!

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Update #3 for the EPEL campaign

Survey

Click here to take the EPEL survey and provide feedback whether you’re a user, contributor, or both! I promise you it is the best, most fulfilling survey you will ever take in your life.

Blog Post

Bam, I wrote it! Please check out the HackMD below and leave any comments you have. I’m looking for feedback on anything, from the way it works as a piece of writing to whether I’m using terms correctly.

It is currently approved by the Fedora Magazine. I will give it to end of day tomorrow to receive feedback before I submit it to them to publish.

Podcast Episode

Here is another Whenisgood link to see what days and times work for all of us to be able to record.

@x3mboy please select a time because without you we can’t make this happen. I unfortunately don’t have any experience with producing a podcast (yet).

@carlwgeorge or @tdawson, if at least one of you could join us, or even another member of the EPEL SIG you recommend, that would be great.

Please select which times work for you in the link. I’ll reply once we have some potential times available.

Because this is also tied to the potential revitalization of the Fedora Podcast for a third season, I’m ok with this slipping out of the “strict” monthly cadence that we’re shooting for.

Social Media

I thought that the social media content we were going to put out would be relatively simple and just serve as a way of bringing EPEL to the top of people’s minds. However, @steiner and @duffy have been fantastic with their ideas and mockups. I’m so happy to have these professional looking graphics for this campaign.

Daimar’s mockups are pretty much done and can be found in his post below.

The last thing we need before posting are to come up with captions to use for the three platforms we’re focusing on right now: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. If you have ideas or drafts for this, you can find the HackMD we’re using below.

It is also likely that some design changes to the Instagram profile will also happen at this time.

Next campaign…

At this time these three main projects we have on deck will be the only things we will push out for the EPEL campaign. Our goal is to wrap this up before the end of the month so that next month we can start fresh on a new topic. Hopefully in the next campaign we’ll do a better job of sticking to our schedule of producing content for a campaign the month before it should all publish.

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