Co-Winner: American Airlines with Weber Shandwick - #AAGalaxy: American Airlines Socializes New In-Flight Entertainment Offering with Twitter Hashtag Promotion
To increase awareness of the news that the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 was being added to in-flight
entertainment, American Airlines created a promotion with the use of #AAGalaxy and @AmericanAir. AA
saw the opportunity to capitalize on Twitter as well as improve the quality of travel for its passengers. In order for the campaign to be a success, the tablets had to be pre-loaded with American Airlines content, which would mirror what was seen on premium American Airlines cabins. Following a launch message, all users with Twitter accounts had the chance to win one of two Galaxy tablets. From launch to deadline, 1,029 entries were recorded and 1,397 followers were gained. —JH
An organization within a specific industry must have a strong presence on Twitter. And for the Association of American Railroads, the challenge of increasing its presence to provide a better outlet for its agenda was major one. With fewer than 800 followers, the AAR needed to come up with a way to get influencers on Twitter to help spread its message and do it fast. The goal was to not to just build a following, but build a following with the right people— thought leaders and those directly affected by the freight rail industry.
To make this work, AAR created a message calendar to avoid repetition, provided links to direct traffic back to its home page and increased the rate of tweets. AAR saw its efforts pay dividends as its Twitter following grew from 780 to 3,435—including several high-profile followers and companies in the freight industry—and also saw its engagement opportunities increase. —JH
Honorable Mentions:
Arketi Group – 2012 Technology Tweet Tournament: TAG created a social media tournament to find Georgia’s top technology tweeter and top technology organizations. The goal was to drive momentum behind the “Where Georgia Leads” campaign. The 20-day tournament involved local colleges and ending up earning 4 of the top 20 trending topics for Atlanta.
Disney Consumer Products – Disney Living RT2WIN Sweepstakes Campaign: Retweet-to-win (RT2WIN) gave fans of Disney Living the chance to win merchandise while increasing its online presence and generate product interest. Fans had to follow and retweet once to be eligible. As a result, @DisneyLiving gained over 37,500 followers.
Hill+Knowlton Strategies and salesforce.com – Desk.com: Bringing the Social Revolution (and Burritos) to Small Businesses: To promote the launch of Desk.com, a cloud-based social customer service solution and“help desk”that integrates social networks with other support channels, the first 1,000 people to retweet the announcement received a free burrito from Boloco, a Desk.com customer.
McDonald’s USA and GolinHarris – Perfect Pair: Frozen Strawberry Lemonade: As the summer heat increased, McDonald’s added a new frozen strawberry lemonade to its menu. Noticing the lack of a social media presence among its competitors, McDonald’s set a goal of 200 tweets to promote the new drink, and 55 million impressions were generated.
R|F Binder and Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker – Scharffen Berger Daily Retweet Contest: Looking to create more brand awareness, Scharffen Berger offered a daily chocolate bar giveaway, supported by a paid advertising campaign. To win, users needed to follow the brand to redeem their prize, resulting in an increase of 1,785 followers during the month-long promotion.
San Diego Gas & Electric – Pacific Southwest Event: When the first system-wide blackout in SDG&E’s history hit, the company’s Twitter account played a large role in passing on information to customers. SDG&E sent out informative messages every 20 minutes, and saw an increase of 10,000 followers during the outage.
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide & tenfour – Tweet-A-Beer: At the 2011 SXSW festival. Waggener Edstrom built and launched a“Tweet-A-Beer”app to allow festival-goers to better connect. Users selected a place to meet and cash in on the beer. Partnerships were created with local business to make the concept work. WCG – Hershey’s Cookie Headquarters: Seeking to promote its four core cookie recipes, Hershey’s used @ HersheysKisses and the hashtag #CookieHQ to field consumers’ questions, and 137 million+ impressions were secured.