How to create an integrated social media campaign
Integration and social media - are these the two most over-used words in PR these days? Maybe. But in the practical reality of putting together a campaign, what do they actually mean?
Is integration always a good thing? And integration with what? Between social media channels? Or between social media, print, TV, radio and online media?
In an ideal world you would use the same content themes across relevant social media, print media, online media and broadcast media. But that’s not always easily done, especially when there is pressure on time, on budget and, when, dare I say it, the content is not sufficiently ground-breaking for there to be mass social media/viral potential.
I think this is one of those areas best discussed in an example. Now, I’m cheating with this example, because it is the company behind the campaign, The Carphone Warehouse did have some great content and they did use some pretty interesting technology to tie the campaign together. But this case study does illustrate the practical lessons and advantages of using multiple social media channels (in this case Twitter and Facebook) and multiple non media channels, in this case online and print.
The campaign
So what was The Carphone Warehouse’s aim? They wanted to raise awareness of the launch of the INQ Cloud touch mobile phone.
The INQ has a relatively low price point but some useful Facebook widget and functions.
The PR guys picked up on the Facebook functionality as this seemed to be an area that differentiated the phone from its competition. They needed some excellent content that appealed to a young audience. So they approached Eliza Doolittle to perform Britain's first exclusive Facebook concert in an empty Ronnie Scott’s Jazz bar, in the heart of Soho, which would be streamed live on The Carphone Warehouse Facebook page.
So this met a whole chunk of objectives. It raised the profile of the phone, it showed off the Facebook Widget and it gave The Carphone Warehouse some great content that they could use to promote their Facebook fan page.
Live streaming of video content from a Facebook Fan page
Broadcast specialist agency markettiers4dc, working with Cake and Freud Communications, was brought in to produce and film the gig and then stream it live on a bespoke landing page on The Carphone Warehouse Facebook page.
The Carphone Warehouse’s Facebook fan page with the live video
Russell Goldsmith, Digital & Social Media Director at markettiers4dc said: “Given this was billed as a first in Facebook, it was of course an exciting campaign for markettiers4dc to be involved in, and the exclusivity of the event was a key reason why it was only available live on The Carphone Warehouse page. However, a lot of the broadcast brief’s we work are not necessarily about building ‘likes’ to a brand’s page but instead are about spreading the client’s message as far and wide as possible through Social Media. Given the vast majority of interaction on Facebook is within the newsfeed of your own page, depending on the campaign, we now look to stream live content through the wall of a brand’s page as well as in a dedicated tab. By broadcasting in this way, the live feed appears in every Facebook news feed of those people who have liked your page and so they can watch the stream, and interact with it, within their own page. However, what’s key is that if they then share that content, the live feed appears in the newsfeeds of all their friends, even if they hadn’t ‘liked’ the page that it originated from, thereby helping with the viral spread of the content.”
Integration
All of the above content ideas and the Facebook functionality, whilst excellent ideas, don’t meet The Carphone Warehouse’s objectives if no-one knows about the Eliza Doolittle live gig.
Therefore their PR agencies made sure that they raised awareness of the gig through Twitter before, during and after the gig.
Traditional media brands, both within their print publications and their online versions were pitched stories and this resulted in some excellent coverage. For example:
On OK.co.uk
On belfasttelegraph.co.uk
On Dailystar.co.uk
And on thisislondon.co.uk
And there was plenty of other coverage, this is just an illustration.
The numbers
The number of fans on Carphone Warehouse’s Facebook fan page increased from 51K before the gig to 56K a week afterwards. (A 10% increase)
Unfortunately, I’ve no idea how many phones were sold – but Carphone Warehouse, if you read this, feel free to let us know.