Technology
Spotlight: Self(ie) Starter
By Treva Lind March 30, 2015
This article originally appeared in the April 2015 issue of Seattle magazine.
Give Seahawks fans at CenturyLink Field a way to make a statement using smartphone photos, hashtags and social media, and you have the basic ingredients behind the Spokane-based business, Photoboxx.
Launched just over a year ago, Photoboxx (photoboxx.me) sets up photo-printing stations at public events. The kiosk prints out keepsake photos taken on mobile devices whose users are encouraged to have Instagram and Twitter distribute their images. By using a prescribed hashtag related to the event, they get a free printout at the kiosk.
Cofounder and CEO Michael Fisk says the interaction lends a marketing boost to the sponsor, who pays a flat rate, depending on the events size and duration. Rates start at about $1,000 for a small event.
In Seattle last September, Photoboxx set up for three hours before the Seahawks game against the Denver Broncos at CenturyLink Field. Photoboxx reports that fans using the hashtag #WeAre12! generated more than 114,000 social impressions, defined as emails and clicks on such platforms as Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Photoboxx hopes to be at more Seahawks games next season. It also has set up at Spokanes legendary Hoopfest basketball tournament, The Farm Chicks Antiques Show, a Gonzaga University gala and Earl Thomas Super Bowl party. Photoboxx designs and builds its own Photoboxx units and has developed software to pull usage data from social networks to provide client reports.
We can give our clients an analytics report that shows them how many used their hashtag, Fisk says. We can show how many impressions their brand/hashtag had on social media [and] how many interactions, such as likes and comments.
Fisk, a wedding photographer, founded Photoboxx with software developer Devon Lind. We just put our brains together, Lind explains, and we decided that we love technology, we love photography and we love social media. You put it all together, [and] bam, youve got Photoboxx.
Photoboxx took first place in the open category at the 2014 Inland Northwest Business Plan Competition hosted by Whitworth University in Spokane.