An Update on the Twitter Scholarship

Posted on 17/10/09 12:31 PM by Amelia

When we initially announced the Twitter Scholarship we announced a rather large prize and promoted it quite aggressively by…

  • making a custom logo for it
  • promoting it across hundreds of pages on our widely read site
  • mentioning it on our blog
  • pinging some of our contacts in the industry and emailed a few bloggers about it
  • promoting it on Twitter
  • and we even went as far as buying Google AdWords ads to help get the word out

…but none of it worked 🙁

I am not sure if it was bad timing, if the submission was too complex, or if students have become more jaded about scholarship offers due lots of fake scholarship offers advertised by affiliate marketers who are doing lead generation – who never actually send out scholarship money.

Each year we do award students with $10,000+ in scholarship program awards, and have done so for the past 4 years now. We were anticipating getting thousands to 10,000’s of entries for the Twitter Scholarship, but so far we have been underwhelmed by the quantity (and to a lesser degree, quality) of the submissions. We have therefore decided to adjust the Twitter scholarship awards to

  • winner – $1,400
  • first runner up – $140
  • second runner up – $140

We will distribute the additional funds we had earmarked for this scholarship throughout the upcoming year by launching more new scholarships.

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8 Comments on “An Update on the Twitter Scholarship”

  1. Zekeri Immanuel Says:

    I dont think it is the best way to do it. I also applied for the scholarship because I have got an admission and would resume in January 2010. I suggest the information should be published in the newspapers and even advertised on TV. Please do reply me if you heed to my advice- even if it does not work. Thank you. Also, the number of people should not be a function of the prize money. So i believe the grant should not be reduced. Thank you

  2. Elisa Says:

    I liked the way this scholarship is right now. Given, I don’t know what it was before today as today was the first time I saw it, but a scholarship update sent about via twitter, the application used in the scholarship, seems like a good idea. It shows which people are really interested in the scholarship. I do, however, agree with Zekeri that the number of people in a scholarship who actually applied should not influence the original amount the scholarship was said to be. I would suggest simply adjusting the scholarship amount in the next scholarship(s) that would be awarded.

  3. Lindsey Says:

    When are you going to announce the winners? I’m very excited to find out!

  4. Daniel Says:

    We have already told the winners. We should make a public announcement before the week is out.

  5. Sam Jackson Says:

    Unfortunately for the demographics you want to reach, Twitter has pretty low penetration among the teens who would be eligible. I think that has a lot to do with it!

  6. Hhans Says:

    To whom it may concern,

    Big kudus for your idea, it could use a little tweeting (pun intended) but you are off to a very good start. As for myself, I am looking for a program to cover 2/3 of my tuition; with only 36 more credits to earn my graduate degree at $612.00/credit, I have to keep digging. Lots of luck, I will spread the word. One more thing… keep up the good work, I just joined your medium and have a lot of admiration for how far your firm has come in such a short time… of course, no small thanks to a person in the highest office in the land.

    Best wishes,

    HC Sandiford

  7. tonya Says:

    I see you already announced winners and such. Was that the only shot at winning this? Or will there be more opportunities? I just recently found out about this…

  8. Social Media Campaigns or Conversations? | Jenna Langer Says:

    […] competition, @scholarship was “underwhelmed” by the number of entries. They released a blog explaining their efforts, along with their decision to decrease the scholarship to $1,400 for first […]

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