Finding foster homes for high-risk shelter pets is a challenging task. Most people do not want to commit for fear of falling in love with a pet they cannot keep or do not want to foster because they don’t have the economic means to do so. Knowing this was a reality, we aimed to create a way for these at-risk dogs to get adopted by harnessing an everyday social behavior and leveraging a space everyone could afford to donate: the Facebook cover photo.

We aimed at creating a way shelter dogs could be e-fostered by multiple people at the same time. Since our budget was nearly zero, we needed a way to bypass Facebook’s content algorithm so our message could spread. We created a physical doghouse, which we turned into an app, and served as a virtual home inside Facebook. Users could e-foster by downloading and placing a rescue dog on their cover photo space on Facebook. Each dog had a custom cover photo and once it was placed it automatically published a story on the newsfeed with an adoption message. A unique url led potential foster parents to a fostering application. Each rescue dog could be easily fostered by multiple people at the same time and every time a dog got e-fostered, friends-of-friends come in contact with the hopeful dog.

The Dallas Pets Alive website changed completely, all the dogs were renamed after trends in real time, as new trends showed up, we changed and added new dogs looking for a home with that trend as their new name.

We also shared these newly named dogs via Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and other owned social media channels.

And we created engaging online videos that presented the idea and directed people to our website.

• We increased their visibility, engagement and chances of adoption.

• We turned adoptable dogs into trending topics.

• We gave trending topics, a social purpose.

• 98% Increase Traffic to DPA.com

• 1.3 pts increase in the Alexa ranking

• AdWords CTR went from 3 to 9.1

• +112% engagement increase per post on Twitter and Instagram.

• 4X more adoptions this year. 200% Increase compared to 2014

• YouTube Views (in 3 days): Increased by 195% with an average time of 51 seconds spent viewing the video.

• Great PR coverage in some of the top publications of the industry (Creativitty Online, Contagious Magazine, Update or Die, etc.)