The Ugly Christmas Sweater Party began as a keg party amongst friends at the University of Kansas in 2004.

In 2008, the group turned what was a holiday bash into a benefit for Operation Breakthrough.

Because the group wanted the money they raised stay in KC, nearly everything at the party was from a local business (venue, beer, auction items).

This study shows Spark’s capabilities on a smaller scale, as well as its use for non-profit purposes. Data was collected from October 1, 2008 through December 15, 2008.

Category Breakdown
Knowing that KC has a strong social media community, the group used their online contacts to spread word about the benefit.

By focusing on sites like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and their personal blogs, the Blog and Social Network categories make up over 77% of the ecosystem.

• Blogs – 40.11%
• Social Networks – 34.07%
• Company/Organization – 11.54%
• Video – 7.69%
• Social Bookmarks – 3.85%
• News – 1.65%
• Forums – 1.1%

News web sites only contribute 1.65% of the total sites in the ecosystem, meaning that although the benefit was successful in raising money for Operation Breakthrough, it did not generate much press coverage. In fact, the news organizations that mentioned the party linked to the wrong web site – which was the only place to purchase tickets for the party.

Semantic Cloud
The Semantic Cloud lists the most popular words on all of the sites in an ecosystem. The words appear like a tag cloud, with the most frequently used words displayed with larger font.

According to the Semantic Cloud, the group may want to consider re-wording their marketing efforts in the future. Operation Breakthrough does not appear anywhere on the list of the top 100 words. Neither does the venue, Tower Tavern, or the date of the party.

Here are some words that do indicate the positive nature of the party. The percentage next to the word is the amount of sites in the total ecosystem on which the word appears:

• Benefit – 47.3%
• Community – 13.4%
• Help – 40.7%
• Poverty – 15.6%

Unfortunately, the data showed that the group didn’t effectively communicate the purpose for throwing the party.

Sentiment
Sentiment is measured in seven degrees: Very Positive, Positive, Slightly Positive, Neutral, Slightly Negative, Negative and Very Negative. Only a few people posted reviews of the party, but they were all Positive or Very Positive. One Kansas City blogger who attended the party wrote:

“If I knew the date for KC Sweater Party, I would mark it on my calendar right now. It was such a blast, and awesome knowing that all the money went to Operation Breakthrough – I think it was over $5k that was raised. Incredible.”

Virtualization
This is the embedded file of the Virtualization, or visual map, of the Ugly Sweater Party’s presence online. Here are a few keys to understanding the Virtualization:

• Each sphere is a web site mentioning the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.
• The lines connecting spheres represent sites that link to each other.
• Green spheres are web sites with positive sentiment.
• Red spheres have negative sentiment.
• Gray spheres are neutral or no sentiment.

Tagged as: Case Studies, ugly christmas sweatery party