YMF Social Media Contests 2020
What a year 2020 has been so far! Ever since the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Las Vegas YMF has worked diligently to continue to host online-only events for its members to maintain an active presence in the local engineering community. To increase engagement with our members during this time, we have introduced a number of contests involving decorating home offices, showing off the best ASCE swag and baking! Pictured to the left is the winning entry of the first contest we held from March 30th to April 10th, the Office Decorating Contest. As the majority of those in the civil engineering community are working from home, we asked all participants to send us a Direct Message (DM) with a snapshot of their decorated home office for a chance to win a Target or Starbucks gift card. At the end, we received approximately 8 submissions, 4 shares and 73 likes on our two Instagram posts highlighting the top 2 contestants as well as honorable mentions for the remaining participants. After much deliberation, the social media committee awarded Oscar Quiroz with the 1st place prize, and Jaffer Almosawy with the 2nd place prize. Overall, we received excellent feedback from our first contest and noticed a significant participation rate from our membership, which encouraged us to plan further contests to continue engaging our members.
From April 15th to May 1st, we held the ASCE Spirit Day Competition. We asked ASCE YMF members to DM us a photo of themselves wearing their best ASCE swag for a chance to win a gift card and received 3 submissions, 2 shares and 52 likes on our two corresponding IG posts. Jaffer Almosawy swept the competition at 1st place with his incredible collection of ASCE memorabilia and merch, while Heidi Dexheimer and Iani Batilov won 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, for rocking their UNLV ASCE “Keep It Civil” shirts! We were so proud to see how dedicated our members are to ASCE as a whole while showing support for their alma mater UNLV by wearing their student shirts.
Our final contest involved arguably the most skill and technique out of all three major competitions, the Baking Contest. We asked members to send us photos of their best quarantine baked creations and we ranked our favorites. Pictured on the left is Jaffer Almosawy’s impeccable Oreo cheesecake, which quite literally “took the cake” at 1st place, while Ati Abad won second place for her wonderfully creamy berry swirl cake. Last, but not least, Kiana Negoro won 3rd place for her incredible almond chocolate strawberry eclair sporting the ASCE letters. In sum, we received approximately 6 submissions, 3 shares and 161 likes across the two posts showcasing our winning submissions and honorable mentions. We could only imagine how savory each of these delectable creations were, but we definitely proved that our local civil engineers truly double as exceptional bakers! In the end, each of these contests demonstrated that Las Vegas effectively kept YMF alive despite the limits that the nationwide quarantine mandate imposed on in-person events, and we aim to continue to offer similar methods of engagement in the coming months as the coronavirus outbreak persists. We thank each and every one of our amazing contestants and social media followers for supporting ASCE Las Vegas YMF, and stay tuned for our future competitions!