Thursday, March 26, 2015

DPT Student Sponsorship

So, after APTA's Combined Sections Meeting this year, there were whispers of interests regarding the sponsorship of DPT students, covering what financial burdens would be such that they can join in the largest Physical Therapy convention in the United States. Here are a few tweets on the topic at hand:


Answering the call, one of our favorite Physio anonymities approached me to say this.

From Cinema:

Intangibles are priceless. Goodwill is one of those intangibles. Generating and compounding Goodwill is something that can yield unexpected returns that have a strong potential to grow geometrically over time. Think about it this way: planting ONE seed of Goodwill will sprout into a plant that yields multiples of the ONE seed you originally planted. I can think of no better recipient of Goodwill in Physical Therapy than the passionate group of DPT students.

Twitter has been a game-changer for me by connecting me with Physio's I would never have met in-person, exposure to current issues in our industry, as well as current research. It also exposed me to highly driven DPT students who inspire me to be a better Physio. I want to give back. Let's get the Goodwill rolling.

As such, we had an extensive email chain which covered ideas on how to run a sponsorship campaign for DPT students to join in on the fun for CSM in Anaheim next year... and also talked about random topics such as our favorite whiskies. Trust me, it was important ;)

Haha, in any case, we finally landed on this:


At present, it isn't a widely used hashtag. However, I think there is potential to speak volumes. Since one of the key purposes of conventions such as CSM is professional advocacy, we decided that a social media contest would be the best way to bring light to those most deserving of sponsorship.

How It's Going To Work
The angle of this contest is 100% consumer oriented. Meaning, it isn't about the data or the statistics; it's about what physical therapists mean to our consumers. We're hoping that you will find clever ways to capture the following essence in whatever approach you're creative minds come across:

Imagine a Vine bit, 6 seconds only, and you record (with your patient's permission) them saying something like this...
"I'm back to running, and my times have never been better. #PTStrong"

Cinema and I liked the fact that Vine and Twitter being hand-in-hand allows for quick and sharable experiences. More importantly, it allows for simplicity to reign supreme. The strongest brands tend to have the simplest definitions. Therefore, we want to encourage this spirit of simplicity.

So here are the rules of the sponsorship challenge:
  1. With a patient's or past consumer's permission, film them stating their experience and how it made them #PTStrong.
  2. Tag your Vine video with #PTstrong and link it your Twitter account.
  3. Retweet and Favorite as many videos as you can.
  4. The Vines with the highest number of retweets will go through a run-off.
  5. Top voted Vine wins the prize.
  • All the sharing will only elevate PT brand's share of mind.
  • Everyone wins through this little contest as our consumers will become more aware and we will become more involved in the future of our profession.
  • Hopefully, we can do several runs of this contest so that more than one well deserving DPT student can win a sponsorship to attend CSM next year.
We want to encourage you to share this with all of your DPT compadres and even those who are long set in their careers. You see, our vision for the #PTstrong hashtag is one of brand presence. The more we see this on Twitter, through Vine, Instagram, Facebook, even Youtube, the better! We want to CHOOSE how our brand image is portrayed. What better than a grassroots social media movement, hearing out their voices in how we changed their lives and made them #PTstrong?

ONE LAST THING!
I know that many of you wanted in on the idea of sponsoring a DPT student to attend CSM next year. We hope the passion still burns fiercely that you'd consider joining us. Ultimately, the hope is to crowd fund as many sponsorships as we can through this Vine contest.

If you're interested, please let us know (email, tweet, message, whatever)! Then... we can get this thing started!!!

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