How can Drupal promote GCI/GSoC within its own community?
Events like Google Code-In and Google Summer of Code provide a great platform for students to interact with communities of various organisations. Communities of such organisations, like Drupal, interact with various contestants from around the world.
They can be promoted by Drupal within its community in the following ways:
Keynote/Session in DrupalCon
DrupalCon is an event where thousands of peple from around the globe, who are a part of Drupal's community, come together. Drupal is a COMMUNITY and the events are a big part of it. The following steps can be taken:
- Different task examples
- Distributing flyers to the people present
- Speeches by past mentors or participants
- Displaying prizes for the winners and other goodies
So promoting GCI/GSoC would lead to more and more interest in Drupal contributors to mentor or others to participate.
Special Mention
Mentioning and sharing stories of participants and mentors in GCI/GSoC would also motivate the community to be a part of these events too. A special page can be made for participants/mentors to blog/share their experiences directly with the community so that more and more members of the community can participate. This web page can contain full details regarding the event and can be handled by mentors. Event specific posts and discussions will be a part of this web page.
Event Announcement
Updates like event dates and details can be e-mailed personally to the members of the community to attract more and more people. These e-mails can contain task examples, timeline for the events, various prizes etc. Also, a feedback form can be integrated in the e-mails which will help Drupal gain information about its community and how many would be interested in mentoring/ participating.
Create Marketing Materials
Developing brochures and other marketing materials that describe the benefits and opportunities of GCI/GSoC for marketing purposes. Merchandise like T-shirts portraying Drupal's involvement in GCI/GSoC would be a great step to promote them. The brochures, t-shirts or other merchandise created by former participants can be used and the participants can be given a special mention.
Connect via Social Media
Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram can provide an avenue for reaching a large number of interested people in the community. Tweets and posts displaying GCI/GSoC would gain a lot of attraction. Posts can be:
- Short videos like interviews with former participants/ mentors
- Task related posts
- Event details, dates and prizes
Social media would attract a big part of the community and spread awareness for the events
Conducting mentor hunts
Mentors are necessary for any organisation to help and review the work of contestants. Mentors can be attracted by sending Drupal contributors the perks of being a mentor at GCI/GSoC. The following points can be displayed to them:
- They get to observe the skills of innumerable students around the world
- A big experience for them. Mentoring and helping the students is a really great experience for many.
Also they can be sent special merchandise for Mentors, like T-shirts saying Mentor for Google Code-In. Mentors do a great job by participating and helping the contestants.