Great Social Media Idea: Disposable Camera Fun

Joe Kuffner
, Video, Instagram

Let's get this out of the way first: I stole this idea so brazenly that really I deserve to go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, and do not collect $200. All proper credit belongs to Ithaca College and Rob Engelsman. 

But, of course, I'm a magpie for good ideas, especially bright and shiny good ideas like putting a bunch of disposable cameras around campus and inviting people to take pictures, all while (quasi) surreptitiously filming them, and then developing all the pictures and putting them up in a big public art display and also posting them all online. I mean... it's pretty much amazing.

I actually did this once before in April 2013, and it proved to be so popular that I was approached by some great students from the UP Marketing Club to do it again this fall. I sort of reluctantly agreed - I didn't want to go to the well too often with this idea - but since there are now two full classes on campus that weren't here the last time we did it, I acquiesced. And I'm glad I did, because the results were awesome! Check it out:

We used 10 cameras this time, and I was pretty shocked when all of them were completely used up by noon. In 2013 we did 15 cameras, and it took all the way til evening to have them all used, which is why I opted for fewer this time around. But, of course, no one knew what it was in 2013 either, and this time around all the juniors and seniors had been through it before.

Anyway, we also built a micro-site to host all the pictures (just kind of seemed fun to do it that way), though I also did post them all on Facebook.

My favorite part of it, though, is getting all the pictures developed and displaying them on campus. There is a perfect spot in our main campus cafeteria to put them up, which we did this year by doing a very Pinteresty display using twine and clothespins. 

We encourage the students to take the photos that they took, which I really like - it's a fun memento for them to keep and put up in their dorm rooms, especially since it's so rare these days to actually get photos printed.

Anyway, I agree 100% with Rob Engelsman when he said this about this idea:

It's pretty much the pinnacle of everything I like in a social media project: it's authentic community created content, it connected the real world to the social media world, it appealed to all of our audiences, and it was unexpected.

I think it's now cemented as a tradition at UP as long as I'm there to run the social media projects, and I couldn't be happier.

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