runforboston social media case study

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#RUNFORBOSTON: CASE STUDYMeasuring a decoupled, viral campaign

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This is Chris Field• Holds a degree in

Christian Ministry• Founded Mercy

Project in 2009• Loves to run• Launched BCS

Marathon, started in 2011

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On April 15, 2013, our lives changed.

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The Facebook page went viral.

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FacebookIdea forms. Starts

Facebook Community.

Facebook goes viral. By the end of the day, over 1.7 million people have seen your posts. The page has over 12,000 likes.

Twitter goes viral. By the end of the day, your hashtag reaches almost 1.6 million people. Press find Chris via Twitter.

YouTubeAbout 60 videos of runners are viewed by over 12,000 people.

TwitterCreates and

encourages use of #runforboston

News MediaOver 164 news media articles appeared in the last week about #runforboston

BloggersOver 10 million

women notified via BlogHer

network

TodayDay 3-7Day 2Day 1

An Idea Goes Viral

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Methodology• Facebook data from Facebook Insights and Polygraph Media

courtesy download / analysis tool

• Twitter data from SocialBakers, Topsy, Social Mention, and TweetReach

• Blogger audience estimates from Alexa, Compete, and Sitetrail

• All data spans 4/16 – 4/22 as the analysis window.

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SummaryMedium Exposure (Audience Size)

Facebook 2,220,201

Twitter 12,928,370

News* 3,530,333

Bloggers** 7,370,000

Total 26,048,094

*Average active viewers = Total US News Media viewership as per the Pew Research Center State of News Media report 2011 * stations covering RFB** Assumed opened emails by BlogHer active email database

Exposure estimates do not include those media that have yet to have published established audience benchmarks, such as: Pinterest, Instagram, Photobucket, Picasaweb, Metacafe, Flickr, Tumblr

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FACEBOOKReached over 2.2MM people within 48 hours

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Facebook StatsAudience Reached:

2,220,201

People who posted or shared content:

59,168

Total impressions:

6,722,616

Most of the reach and impressions came from people posting their photo on the page’s wall.

-

500,000

1,000,000

1,500,000

2,000,000

2,500,000

3,000,000

3,500,000

4,000,000

fan mention other page post user post

Viral Impressions by Content Type

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Over half viewed 2+ times

While about half of your audience on Facebook only looked at one RFB post, many looked at 2 or more.

(and 57,431 people looked at your content more than 20 times!)

1,010,059

477,812

233,548

135,692

80,500

163,109

62,050 57,431

1 2 3 4 5 6-10 11-20 21+

How Often People Viewed RFB Content

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Very young and very old indifferent to RFB

It’s important to compare the population that “likes” your page to the overall Facebook population to understand your audience.

RFB had higher than average participation from men and women age 25-54.

RFB significantly underindexed for young people (24 and under) and older people (55+).

-636.6%

-78.2%

27.8% 47.3% 24.0%

-33.7%

-132.5%

-1299.2%

-97.1%

42.8% 48.8%

-7.8%

-86.6%

-236.6%

13-17 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+

RFB Likes Index By Age and GenderMen Women

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Global participationThe overwhelming majority of “likes” on RFB came from the United States. However, there was a significant amount of participation internationally.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Canada UnitedKingdom

Mexico Germany Australia Costa Rica Sweden Italy Poland Japan Belgium Spain Ireland Brazil

Participation by Country (excludes US, top 14)

US 24,323

International 755

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Texas DominatedNine of the top 20 cities of those who “liked” RFB on Facebook came from Texas.

It’s interesting to note that Boston, MA was the #2 most represented city.

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600

College Station, TX

Boston, MA

Houston, TX

Dallas, TX

Austin, TX

Bryan, TX

San Antonio, TX

Grand Rapids, MI

New York, NY

Fort Worth, TX

The Woodlands, TX

Chicago, IL

Washington, DC

New Orleans, LA

Eugene, OR

Los Angeles, CA

Columbus, OH

Katy, TX

Brooklyn, NY

Philadelphia, PA

Portland, OR

US Participation by City

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Facebook Word Cloud of Fan Comments

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TWITTERReaching over 1.5MM people within 8 hours

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24 hour peakBetween April 17 and April 18:• 1,594 tweets • 1,246 tweeters• 1,572,516 people

reached• 2,316,186 impressions

Exposure:Range Count

0-99 Followers 623100-999 Followers 7531000-9999 Followers 21010000-99999 Followers 5100000+ Followers 3

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April 16 – April 26• 8,769 shared links to

local runs• 13,105 tweets with

the hashtag #runforboston

• 5,570 photos tweeted

• 39 videos tweeted

• Approx 19MM impressions

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Twitter Hashtag Users Word Cloud

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VIDEONews media and international video content

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One thousand participants in the race village in memory of the victims of terrorism in Boston, wanted the Councillor Chiara Bisconti. *

Warsaw, Poland Romania Milan, Italy

International Events

“In Park Skaryszewski next to the National Stadium in Warsaw we host the action Run for Boston - run of solidarity , which got under way all the action on Facebook.”*

*I used Google Translate. Forgive translation errors.

“Reality TV and the Romanian Rugby Federation, in partnership with the Municipality, held Sunday, April 28, 2013 an exceptional event: a popular cross country race in memory of victims of the Boston marathon.

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Concord, NH Eastown, MI

Knoxville, TN GreenBay, WI Chicago, IL

Local News Coverage

Asheville, NC

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BLOGGER OUTREACHSeveral prominent bloggers picked up the story

(and participated)

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BlogHer picks up the story• BlogHer is a community of

women bloggers that has a daily readership in the millions.

• They have fairly strict requirements for being in their network.

• They also send email digests daily of top stories. It was in one of these emails Run For Boston content was featured.

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A Foodie Stays Fit• Over 107,000

monthly pageviews• 3,090+ Twitter

followers• 1,090+ Facebook

fans• 1290+ Instagram

followers• 815+ Pinterest

followers• Part of the BlogHer

network, which emails content to over 10 million women

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Nutritious Eats• Over 5,000 monthly

pageviews• 1,300 Twitter

followers• 1,238 Facebook

Likes• 461 Pinterest

Followers

• Part of the BlogHer network, which emails content to over 10 million women

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Jess Runs• Over 5,000 monthly

pageviews• 2,195 Twitter

followers• 1,238 Facebook

Likes• 461 Pinterest

Followers

• Part of the BlogHer network, which emails content to over 10 million women

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Daily Garnish• Over 5,000 monthly

pageviews• 4,001 Twitter

followers• 1,475 Facebook

Likes

• Over 11,000 email subscribers

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Pumps and Iron• Over 150,000

pageviews / month• Over 8,000 visitors /

month• Professional fitness

blogger

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HONORABLE MENTIONOne of the Facebook fans, @oberbecca on Twitter, created a Google Doc asking people to log how far they ran for Boston

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Run For Boston Google Doc• As of last check, 4,239 people had added to the document• Runners have logged over 21,000 miles for Boston• A word cloud of their comments is on the following page.

• It’s interesting to note that MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow found this Google Doc, inspiring her to blog about it and mention it on-air.

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Google Doc Word Cloud

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CLOSING THOUGHTSLessons learned

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Context• On day 1 the campaign received

~6 million views, and by day 7, over 40 million views

• Twitter following increased 2700% and Facebook fan interaction was up 800%

• Oldspice.com website traffic was up 300%

• The Old Spice YouTube channel became the all time most viewed channel

• The campaign has generated 1.4 billion impressions

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Closer comparison• 16,033 retweets• 6,224 favorites• Approx. 23MM

impressions

• Took about 2 years to create a social media war room, policies, and staff

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Closest comparison

• 167,000 Messages across social• 102K Facebook likes• 2,362 Twitter followers

• 18,413 Tweets using the #26acts hashtag• 1 million web page views

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The takeawayWhat Worked

• Authenticity• Agility• Timeliness• Participatory

What Didn’t

• Not having a website• Lack of integration

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QUESTIONS?april@digitalanalytics101.com