Four senior team members at the Satellite Center are helping the Louisiana tourism industry promote the state’s bicentennial celebrations this year.
The group won second place at a statewide competition on implementing free social media to highlight Louisiana events and landmarks.
Mya LaGrange, Kayla Demma, Forest Muller and Holly Sweeney traveled to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration last week to present at the Louisiana Business Challenge.
The competition focused on bringing awareness for all that Louisiana has to offer during the state’s bicentennial this year. The event drew 240 students from around the state, forming 64 teams.
Each team used emerging technology and new media to develop an innovate tourism campaign to increase awareness of local points of interest. Teams were not allowed to use traditional media, such as print advertisements or television commercials. There were also no funds offered to complete the project, so teams had to rely on free or very low-cost materials to promote their chosen topic.
The Satellite group chose to focus on the New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park.
LaGrange said that social media sites are the “tools of the future” for business promotion and that everyone should know how to use them. She said that setting a business apart from its competition by using social sites and other new media is essential.
“(Businesses) need something to make them different,” LaGrange said.
Craig Howat, facilitator at the Satellite Center, said that while the challenge did not call for working with actual clients, Satellite team members did.
“We opened that up for them and to me that’s the beautiful thing about the Satellite Center…they get to work with these clients and contribute to society while still in high school,” Howat said. “How great is it for the kids that worked with the jazz park to work with these rangers and realize they’re making a difference in these peoples’ livelihoods?”
The group used sites and programs like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare to promote the park. They even created a QR code, printed it on stickers and stuck them around town. When scanned on a smart phone, the code will take viewers directly to the park’s website.
Demma said that businesses should use these sites as much as possible because they are a free way to market any business to a wide range of age groups.
The group worked for about 10 weeks during school and on their own time to complete the campaign.
And their time and effort paid off – literally. The group split a $1,000 prize when they won at the regional level and an $8,000 prize for placing second at the state level.
Besides helping to promote a local treasure and pocketing some treasure of their own, the group said they learned valuable skills through participating in the competition, like public speaking and presenting.
Sweeney said she was very timid and had trouble speaking in front of large audiences before working on this project. But after presenting their project to multiple judges, she feels much more confident in her public speaking abilities.
Muller said the competition helped all of the participants learn about work ethic and team work – skills that can be used in any field they may enter after high school.
“It was a great experience,” Demma said.
The group said they plan to continue to help promote the park through social media even though their project is complete.
“It’s more than just a grade,” Muller said.
Three other teams from the Satellite Center placed second at the regional competition. Their topics were Matherne’s Airboat Tours, Louisiana Fairs and Festivals and New Orleans Plantation Country through the River Parish Tours Commission.
The participants’ work from the competition will be used by the Bicentennial Committee and the Department of Tourism to help promote Louisiana for years to come.
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