ABOUT

BACKGROUND
The Science and Technology Information Institute or DOST-STII is the marketing and public relations arm of the Philippine Department of Science and Technology. It spearheads various communications campaign to promote the works of the agency and ensure that the Filipino people understand the important role of investing in science, research, and development in creating a better quality of life for all.

One of the pet programs of DOST-STII is STARBOOKS or the Science and Technology Academic and Research-Based Openly-Operated KioskS. It's a stand-alone information source designed to reach those with limited or no access to S&T information resources.

The agency has been appointed by DOST-STII to promote STARBOOKS in social media.

CONCEPT
In designing the social media promotional campaign for STARBOOKS, we banked on the Filipinos' love for gameshows. Many American gameshow franchises were rating hitters in Philippine TV, including 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire', 'Family Feud', 'The Weakest Link', and "Deal or No Deal'. Even homegrown game and quiz shows like 'Pilipinas Game KNB' also saw enthusiasm and approval from the Filipino viewing public.

Coming for this insight, we designed STARBOOKS Live Quiz - a monthly gameshow broadcasted from DOST-STARBOOKS' official Facebook Page. The gameshow featured multiple choice questions that showcased a variety of branches or fields in science per month. The gameshow also became an avenue to inform participants what STARBOOKS is, why it's beneficial for the community, and how to get it in their locality.

EXECUTION
In staging STARBOOKS Live Quiz, we relied on three programs or apps:
1. Facebook - we used DOST-STARBOOKS' official Facebook page as the home of the social media-based gameshow.
2. Livereacting - this is a thirdparty-tool which automates scoring and determination of winners.
3. OBS - this helped us customize the gameshow's graphics and insert commercials before and after the show.

We also recruited two individuals with bubbly personality to take turns in hosting the gameshow.

As an added measure, we provided monetary prizes to encourage participants in our gameshow. Per show, we determine 10 winners who will receive cash prize of Php 500 each that would be sent using Philippine popular finance app GCash.

RESULTS
At the end of the campaign, we were able to achieve the following social media feats:
1. Reached more than 5.2 million people;
2. Earn more than 127 thousand engagements;
3. Add more than 30 thousand new followers for the DOST-STARBOOKS Facebook page; and
4. Record more than 131 thousand minutes viewed for our 12 broadcasts (an average of 11 thousand minutes viewed per episode).

Aside from that, the campaign also pushed downloads for STARBOOKS family of apps in Google Play:
1. STARBOOKS App: 3,667 new downloads
2. STARBOOKS Whiz App: 965 new downloads
3. STARBOOKS Geomap App: 699 new downloads

The campaign was also instrumental in deploying a total of 6,788 STARBOOKS units across the Philippines, which were deployed through enrollment by learning institutions and local government units and even through the donation of the private sector in schools in remote areas of the country.