What campaigns made the biggest impact on social during this week’s SXSW Interactive?
Attracting an audience of tens of thousands every year, the South by Southwest festival offers huge opportunities for brands and marketing. Announcements and developments are eagerly debated on social media and most brands plan specific campaigns around the festival.
We decided to take a look at some of the campaigns around this year’s SXSW Interactive, which kicked off on Friday March 11th last. Using NewsWhip Analytics, we tracked SXSW content over an 8-day period from 7th – 15th March. For the purposes of this article, please note that “Facebook interactions” refers to the total likes and shares elicited by a piece of content during this time frame.
Mentions
In this 8 day period alone, 9,784 articles referencing SXSW appeared on Facebook alone. This content generated nearly 1.7 million interactions, underlining the huge reach enjoyed by the festival. Articles which mentioned SXSW in the body earned 1.06 million interactions. The biggest story of this period was Breitbart’s article on President Obama missing Nancy Reagan’s funeral in order to attend SXSW, which notched up 32,791 interactions.
The data also highlighted several major marketing campaigns around the event. Breaking down the numbers, we picked a few of the most successful.
The White House
President Barack Obama’s administration is no stranger to social. The White House has been lauded for its deft use of social media and the President’s keynote speech in Austin provided a notable opportunity to engage with followers. The White House divided video of the speech into a number of shorter clips, each focusing on specific topics such as unemployment and voting rights. These were then added to its official Facebook page, with subtitles added to ensure they were accessible without sound.
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The White House also uploaded a photo from the event and noted that the President was the first incumbent to attend SXSW. This relatively simple approach proves highly effective on social. Videos ensure that the President’s talk is easily accessible across multiple channels, while references to its historic nature help single out the event amid a busy presidential calendar. In total, The White House generated 79,583 interactions from SXSW content, one of the most successful of the week so far.
Game of Thrones
HBO series Game of Thrones is one of the biggest brands on the planet. With such powerful geek credentials, the show has a naturally wide audience at SXSW and has shown a keen awareness of its following. In previous years, Iron Throne pedicabs were a quirky way of getting people talking, and for this year’s event it went all-out with a recreation of a key location in the show: the Hall of Faces.
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This interactive element lets fans participate in the fantastical world of one of their favourite series. The show’s official Facebook added a dedicated album for the exhibit earlier this week, which it’s continuing to update with fan photos from the event. All are tagged with the hashtag #SXSWesteros, making them easy to find and share across other social channels. In total, SXSW-themed posts have earned over 35,000 interactions in the past eight days, cementing the show’s prolific presence on social.
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Suicide Squad
The marketing team behind the upcoming film Suicide Squad took a unique approach to their SXSW campaign – they set up a tattoo shop. Viral film marketing in this vein helped spur Deadpool to $700m success at the box office last month, and Suicide Squad found a way to make it uniquely their own. Comics character Harley Quinn is one of the film’s major draws and the team took advantage of audience familiarity with her back story in setting up the tattoo parlour.
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The film’s official Facebook has been largely dedicated to the SXSW exhibit over the past eight days. A specific hashtag (#HarleysTattooParlor) sets SXSW content apart, and a photo album documents fan visits at the event as well as promoting available designs. This interactive element is a strong draw for followers, enabling them to share photos and memories with friends on their own channels and in turn draw more attention to the campaign. All this adds up to considerable social success for Suicide Squad, which has earned 38,825 interactions on Facebook alone in this period.
WWE
The WWE is one of the biggest sports entertainment brands in the world, but its own hectic fixtures schedule means it can be difficult to highlight external events. For appearances by its Chief Brand Officer and Chief Technology Officer at SXSW, it instead went low-key and personalised the approach.
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Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon used her official Facebook page – and following of nearly 2.5 million users – to bring added attention to the event. A photo gallery and post was added to WWE’s website and Facebook, while McMahon’s own posts highlighted the panel’s theme of philanthropy. These combined efforts ensured the posts reached a huge volume of engaged users beyond those following the official WWE channels. In total, SXSW posts to the WWE and McMahon’s official pages notched up almost 32,000 interactions.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on developments at SXSW as the week continues. What examples of great marketing campaigns have you seen around the event? Tweet us @NewsWhip or email contact[at]newswhip[dot]com.
