#DrakeSocial > Reflection #2

Last week, #DrakeSocial started on its mission to get Des Moines its own FourSquare badge. FourSquare is rewarding a badge to the city whose list of local hotspots garners the highest number of followers. The idea is inspired by the White House’s #VisitUS initiative.

Obama just announced new initiatives to boost US tourism. Why is your town a great place to visit? Share pics & tell us w/ #visitUS

— The White House (@whitehouse) January 19, 2012

Why should Des Moines be considered one of the places tourists should visit? When people think of Des Moines, a short list of things come to mind: the Iowa Caucuses, corn, butter cows, corn and more corn.. I will admit that I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Iowa, but I would also be the first to attest that there is much more to Des Moines than this generalization. Des Moines has developed a restaurant scene that’s been nationally recognized by big names including Travel Channel’s Man v. Food, Food Network Magazine and Good Morning America.

Graphic by Kerri Sorrell (@icanhaskerri)

To win the FourSquare badge, our list must have the highest number of followers. We are currently in second place behind Baltimore. Beating this city that’s over 15 times our size will require a lot of promotion. I’ve been tweeting local businesses featured in our list about the initiative and have been retweeted a few times. It’s a fair trade: we’re promoting their business, they’re promoting our list by retweeting to their larger fanbase. While this has had some success so far, we will need to think more out of the box to beat bigger cities. Hanging posters, creating videos and calling or sending out press releases to local media may be our next step.

I could rave about being a foodie in Des Moines and the great music scene all day long, but the real reason I am excited about this project is that it will shed a light on our social media presence. I don’t even realize how strong and well versed we are in social media until I go back home to the Chicago suburbs where my friends say, “Wait…you actually use Twitter? Why? I mean I have one, but I just use it to stalk the Kardashians.” They humor me and think I’m a bit strange, but in Des Moines you’d be hard pressed to find a young adult who isn’t on Twitter, FourSquare or Instagram.

Drake University is particularly savvy in the world of social media. They’re active on virtually all platforms and heavily engage with current students, prospective students and alumni. Their Pinterest boards have even been recognized by Mashable, the biggest name in social media news. I want Des Moines to win this badge not only because I believe it’s a great city with a bright future, but because I want to prove to the world that we’re a social media force to be reckoned with.

So, won’t you please follow our FourSquare list to give Des Moines its own badge?

The above is a blog post for Social Media Strategies, a course I am taking at Drake University. To learn more about the class, visit our class website or follow along with our Tweets with the hashtag #DrakeSocial.