The blog hasn’t had any new posts for the past few days, because I (the blog owner) have been busy with the club’s static exhibition all week. It finally wrapped up successfully today. I give this club static exhibition an 80 out of 100. Our booth’s popularity was far beyond what I expected. I thought the Information Research Club would be cold, because to many people, “research” = playing with computers = nerd… But maybe my tactics worked today XD. The crowd was so big I could barely keep up! Although the popularity exceeded my expectations, there were still a lot of things we didn’t do well.

My tactic for this freshman recruitment was giving away freebies. A big thank you to “Sanmiao Wei” and “Bo Qiang” for their generous help. They sponsored many freebies for the club, including items with Ubuntu, Firefox, GNOME and so on. These goodies were the main reason today’s event was such a success. Although ordinary students have never heard of Ubuntu or GNOME, and people who have heard of Firefox are already pretty good with computers, I was worried that putting these things out would make the booth go cold. But I was wrong! Even though nobody recognized the logos, everyone took the goodies with the attitude of “these look really cool~” XD. At first glance this doesn’t help the club, because they’re only there for the freebies. But in reality, when lots of people gather at the Information Research booth, it creates a kind of pull. People think, “Why is there a crowd over there?” and come over to look. That’s when the host needs to seize the moment and introduce the club. Absolutely don’t let them walk away empty-handed! You only need to say: “Juniors, are you interested in joining the Information Research Club? Let me introduce it to you.” Usually the juniors will stop and listen. I’ve never had anyone walk away right away. If someone does walk away or says no, don’t get upset. Good manners matter! Just say thank you XD.

Also, the freebies for this recruitment booth all came from outside communities. If there’s a next year, I think we could use club fees to print our own freebies. When printing, be careful not to make them just a plain logo. You can combine it with whatever was popular at the time and make the freebies look great. Practicality isn’t very important. For example, a sticker with both the Information Research Club logo and a nice picture is very attractive, and people will want to take it.

Many thanks to 214, 215, and so many others! Lots of people stuck our stickers on their bodies and walked around everywhere XDD. They’re basically living ads~

Besides the freebie offensive, at this recruitment exhibition I also actively went to visit the juniors’ classes. There are a few things to keep in mind when visiting classes. I don’t recommend introducing the club during “recess,” “lunch,” or “after school.” The reason is simple: if you want to go out and play during recess, or you’re rushing home after school, and a senior suddenly shows up to introduce something, you’d be annoyed too, right? I suggest going during morning self-study or during class time. I used class time this time. I borrowed 10 minutes of the juniors’ computer class from their computer teacher to give a presentation. This needs to be arranged with the juniors’ teacher, and your own teacher has to be consulted in advance too, since you’re using class time to introduce things. Usually, if you’re very polite, the teachers will agree. Also, while visiting classes, you can leave a few flyers behind in other classrooms XD.

When visiting classes, you must introduce the club’s features, then tell them what will be on display at the static exhibition and what they can get as freebies there. Don’t spend too much time. Try to keep it within 10 minutes so the juniors don’t get impatient. I remember when I was a first-year, a senior came into our class to promote their club, and we talked back to them…

These are some of the methods I used this time, but there are actually many more tricks! For example, you can set up one or two computers at the recruitment booth, let the juniors who come to look do contests and games, and give them small gifts. This way you create the feeling that “this booth is packed.”

Besides that, at the static exhibition you can have some officers and members hand out flyers, and the people handing out flyers can wear stickers XD. Also, sometimes the crowd suddenly grows a lot, so you can’t have just one person doing the introduction, and you can’t have only one person who knows what to introduce. Once there are a lot of people, some of them can’t hear the introduction, and they get impatient and leave first. I lost a lot of people that way this time. One person introducing is really not enough!

Also, you can create a Facebook fan page and run a “like to enter the lottery” campaign. For example, after liking the page, you’d get a serial number, and you could bring that number to the static exhibition booth to enter a drawing~ A netizen taught me this, and I modified it a little, but we didn’t actually run it this time.

That’s roughly my reflection and self-criticism……