Social Media Smackdown

How it all started

ISITE Design was invited to submit a video short for the popular MITX Awards in fall 2008. An enthusiastic brainstorm resulted in a fictional luchador character, El Consultador. The video would highlight his efforts to toughen up our staff and improve results through violent and unorthodox tactics.

What unfolded over the next month was an experiment in leveraging multiple digital and social media channels to create interest, intrigue, and suspense culminating in his debut by video and in person to 1,100 influential New England marketers.

ISITE’s measurement team carefully tracked El Consultador’s progress with free measurement tools. The campaign took on a life of its own and provided some key lessons for similar social marketing initiatives.

An integrated social media experiment

The campaign had a carefully orchestrated sequence of events involving multiple digital channels and important offline touch points.

Before the event

• Twitter: El Consultador created a Twitter account early on to quietly introduce himself to the world. The initial Tweets began innocently enough.
• Video: The staff storyboarded, scripted, and filmed a 90 second video to debut at the MITX awards. ISITE’s in-house digital media group shot and edited the production.
• MITX Exchange: El Consultador created a profile on the social networking site for MITX to share some of his expertise on conflict resolution through violence.
• Some Flickr images: A photo gallery emerged of El Consultador’s illustrious past. He updated it frequently leading up to the event, cross linking with descriptive Tweets.
• Tweeting: A week before the event, El Consultador’s Tweets got more aggressive as he actively engaged local New England marketers attending MITX. His interactions piqued interest and curiosity, but provided little context on what was to follow.

At the event

• MITX Awards Ceremony: As 1,100 marketers showed up for the big event, El Consultador made a surprise visit, networking with the crowd, posing for photos, and mixing it up with attendees. Numerous Twitter followers started to make the connection, but didn’t quite yet understand.
• Business cards: El Consultador was a man of few words, but did have business cards that linked to his Twitter profile and explained his role as a professional luchador consultant.
• T-shirts: He also came bearing gifts for his loyal Twitter followers, distributing a small number of T-shirts to his Twitter followers.
• Thumb drives: Attendees discovered a handful of mysterious thumb drives around the MITX event with El Consultador’s belongings. This included his resume and links to additional information.
• Video premier: As the awards started, El Consultador’s video flickered up on the giant screens. For the majority of the room, this was the first time the entire campaign came into context, building upon all of the prior digital and offline touch points.
• Live interview: The onstage emcee did a live interview with El Consultador during the show for additional exposure and context.
• Post-event networking: The audience was excited to network with El Consultador after the event having learned the full story and made the connection with his backstory and pre-event visibility.

After the event

• Tweeting: El Consultador continued to interact with the Twitter community gaining new followers from the post-event buzz.
• Flickr: The photo gallery continued gain fresh images of his recent adventures
• Fan Art: Some fans actually submitted their own El Consultador photos.
• Blogs: Numerous bloggers reported on El Consultador including a very detailed video blog entry from CC Chapman.
• Real connections: Beyond the digital connections and followers, El Consultador helped forge real relationships with folks that interacted with the brand and wanted to meet the agency involved.

How we measured it

Measuring social media efforts is still a difficult proposition. We used multiple free tools to help measure the impact, influence and reach of the campaign. These included:

• Google Analytics: Site-side analytics measured the traffic back to our agency site and the referring social media properties.
• Twitter: The number of followers, interactions provided a real time barometer on how quickly interest was spreading.
• You Tube: Video analytics from You Tube went beyond views to show engagement during the video and geographic distribution.
• Yahoo Pipes: Aggregated data on how users were searching for El Consultador
• Tweet Stats: Provided additional insight on the tweet frequency and level of activity across his network
• Tweet Volume: Watched for how often certain words related to El Consultador appeared on Twitter
• Reach and Mentions: Scanning the blogosphere for mentions from prominent bloggers helped determine the influence of specific campaigns.

Was it worth it?

The campaign was an overwhelming success. It was one of the most talked about parts of the MITX event and created a memorable brand impression backed by a deep back story and multiple digital touch points. The tactics leveraged existing tools and strategically sequenced the campaign to build suspense and intrigue prior to the actual event.

The physical appearance of El Consultador at the event helped separate the campaign from typical social media initiatives and caused a more meaningful word of mouth effect at and after the show.

The campaign served its purpose of creating a memorable brand interaction and also was a helpful experiment in demonstrating how to plan, deliver and measure a social marketing campaign.

Planning your own social campaigns?

Our strategy team would love to share the lessons learned from this campaign and others to help bring your campaign to life. Drop us a line at results@isitedesign.com.