Promotion Coordinator
Your main responsibility is to ensure your friend has dynamic, beautiful and enticing promotional materials.
You understand how important exposure is for your FP dog. You are enthusiastic about creating fun original content to show off every aspect of your FP dog everywhere you can. You are excited to make sure the world can see your dog doing everything from training, to romping in playgroup, to snoozing on a volunteer's bed, to swimming at K9 Waterworld, to taking a simple walk on the trail. If you don't know how to take great pictures and videos but want to learn, great! We can help with that. If you don't know how to run a social media account, but want to learn. Again - we can help with that!
How to advocate for your Flight Paths dog
When you need the Flight Paths Managers to take action on behalf of your dog, use submit a Flight Paths Action Request form. For example, does your dog need a Training Plan? Send in a request! Does your team need help with a marketing plan? Send in a request! You can also use the form to submit pictures, videos, or other documents.
Promotion Pathway - goals and deadlines for your dog's pathway outta here
Roughly 90% of all people that adopt from APA! found the dog they want to adopt on our website. The other 10% find the dog they want to adopt through social media (instagram, facebook, NextDoor, CraigsList, Adopt-A-Line, etc.).
It's critical that each animal in our care have a strong online presence that reflects their unique personalities with beautiful photographs, fun dynamic videos and well-crafted biographies. Learn more about the Promotion Care Pathway here.
Promotion Care Pathway Goals / Milestones
By Day 1 - All dogs have bio and one photo
By Day 5 - All dogs have good bio with one good photo
By Day 7 - All dogs have seven photos, one video
By Day 30 - All dogs have 7 great photos, 3 great video clips
By Day 30 - All Level 2 and Level 3 dogs have Social Media Accounts (Insta, TikTok, etc.)
By Day 60 - Level 2 and 3 dogs receive increased Marketing (bio video, video/social features)
By Day 60 - Level 3 dogs Marketing is reviewed monthly
Promotion Dashboard
Here's a Data Studio dashboard to give you a quick visual of your FP dog's promotion needs.
What you are committing to
As Flight Crew Promotion Coordinator, you must be a volunteer Dog Walker trained up to your FP dog's handling level ("collar color").
You will do your best to:
Share the skills you have and learn the skills you don't;
Ensure your dog has all of its required promotional materials on time according to the Promotion Pathway, including social media accounts;
Keep your FP dog's promotional materials fresh by regularly updating with dynamic, beautiful and enticing photos and videos;
Create and/or take advantage of any and all promotional opportunities that might arise for your friend (eg, in-person events if your dog is event- eligible, news cameras on campus, holiday photo shoots, etc.); and,
Report weekly on your FP dog's progress.
The Promotion Coordinator can delegate as much or as little of the effort as they wish, but will be the dog's point person for all efforts. While there can be only one Promotion Coordinator, you can have as many people as you want on your team. For example, if your dog's promotional needs include a new "bio video" (a longer-form video featuring the dog and a bestie extolling their virtues), and you know a volunteer that LOVES to shoot videos, or is great at being the "bestie" and talking on camera, you can enlist them to your team and just check on their progress so you can report on it.
How to submit Bios / Photos
To upload photos or short videos to your FP dog's profile banner, submit them via the Dog Photo & Video Form.
To submit information for a bio for your FP dog, answer the questions in the Dog Bio & Scores Form.
To write your own bio for your FP dog, use this In-Shelter Dog Bio Writing template.
To submit videos longer than 50 seconds, please use wetransfer.com to send them to dog.marketing@austinpetsalive.org.
Where to Promote your Flight Paths Dog
These are all also great places to hunt for current images/videos of your FP posted by other volunteers.
Create an Instagram Account! (Or find someone else to do it!)
Run a TikTok Account! (Or find someone else to do it!)
And finally, post your dog everywhere! Here's a list of the Facebook groups you can join to talk about how much you love your FP dog:
We also encourage you to download and use an app called AdoptMeApp - it will place a photo "diary" on your FP dog's profile page - immediately posting pictures you upload to the app. Then you can pick and choose the really beautiful ones to be featured in the photo slides by uploading them via the Photos & Videos form. To upload short videos via this app, you will need to upload them to your personal YouTube channel and then submit the video's url to the app.
And if you have anyone on the team that can create a business card, postcard and/or flier for your pup, put it up all over town! We recommend buying a cup of coffee at your regular coffee haunt and asking if you can leave 10 biz cards at the counter, or hang a poster up. Do it wherever you spend your money! EXCEPT Tomlinson's or HEB - please don't ask them.
Here's a guide we cribbed from Melody Lamis - thank you Melody!
Community and Resources
The APA! Dog Marketing Team developed a Dog Marketing Guide for our Fosters that will serve you as well! This guide includes photography, video and bio-writing guidelines and tips & tricks for building a great portfolio for your new bestie. The Dog Marketing Team is run by volunteers. They are the people who download, edit and post everything submitted by volunteers and fosters. It's an enormous amount of work managed by a photos team, a bios team and a video team, all led by the Dog Marketing Lead Volunteer, Marion Lewis. Thank her every time you see her!
Here's a list of the APA! Facebook groups you can join to talk about how much you love your FP dog:
Check out the Flight Path Manager Library for actual behavior and care staff-approved books that you can borrow on everything from dog body language to enrichment ideas to behavior modification.
Want to be on this dog's Promotion team, but not lead it? Read on!
If there is a Promotion Coordinator, you may join their team. If your FP dog does not yet have a Promotion Coordinator, you must wait until there is one before you can join the Promotion team. In order to join an FP dog's Promotion team you must:
Be a volunteer Dog Walker trained up to any level. If you are not trained up to your dog's handling level ("collar color"), no worries! You can find another volunteer to handle the dog for you while you photograph, or video them.
Be willing to share the skills you have and learn the skills you don't!