The case study above was presented at SocialMedia.org's Member Meeting 37 in Chicago on October 28, 2015. SocialMedia.org Member Meetings are the most useful, efficient, and productive meetings for social media leaders at big brands. You’ll collaborate with smart and generous people like you, with jobs like yours, at companies like yours. No vendors, no agencies, no sponsors, no consultants, and no small businesses allowed — ever. To learn more, visit socialmedia.org/meetings. To download the slide presentation in this video, visit wom.us/1HRa9Zh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In her SocialMedia.org Member Meeting case study presentation, Jessica Mack, Senior Social Media Manager, for Otter Products, explains how their LifeProof brand empowered influencers to make a video series and tell their story in social media. Jessica goes into detail about their #ChargeAhead campaign and reveals what worked for them, lessons learned, and the overall results of the successful campaign. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below is live coverage of this session: — Jessica explains why this particular case study was very important for them. Often their content is great for out-of-home or print advertising but not the best for social media. For the #chargeahead campaign, they wanted to see if they could flip the model and start with social. — We knew video would be key, so we enlisted the help of a few ambassadors: Slater Trout, stand-up paddleboarder; Ben Jenkin, freerunner; Mike Escamilla, BMX rider; Erik Roner, professional skier and stuntman. — We usually just gave our ambassadors content, but for this one, we talked with them first to figure out what was on their bucket lists, things they have always wanted to do but never got around to or didn’t have the budget for. — Jessica then went through the stories behind each of the series they did with each ambassador. The first of the #chargeahead series, for example, was a Hawaii adventure hike in which Slater Trout ultimately jumped off a cliff into a watering hole. — LifeProof created additional content to create a whole series around the videos. They also worked with the ambassadors to package up the content to make them very easy to share on their own channels. — The campaign resulted with influencers contributing to about 23 percent for the following numbers: • Reach: 49,689,109 • Engagement: 532,716 • Video Views: 4,623,288 — Jessica says this is what worked for them: • Working with ambassadors who already know and love LifeProof products • Involving the ambassadors in the campaign planning • Packaging content for distribution to ambassadors’ fans • Targeting ambassadors’ fans in Facebook and Twitter advertising — Lessons learned: • Direct communication is essential • Longer lead times (Jessica: One month is not enough to plan stunts that no one has ever done before!) • Ensure vendors stick to embargoes • Educate everyone thoroughly on FTC requirements — Jessica encourages brands to start having relationships with ambassadors now, well before their help is needed. If brands have physical products, try to get it in ambassadors’ hands before it launches. And consider finding ambassadors who already love your product. — For a look at the videos referenced in Jessica’s presentation, go here: https://t.co/GBfzy4MUxH Q&A: Q: Were you able to get paid behind your ambassadors’ posts and how did that conversation go with your ambassadors? A: We didn’t do that for this; it was mostly our channels we were promoting. That is something we’re thinking about though. Q: Would you be able to say how much a paid strategy figured in this campaign? A: Most of our budget went to production. We had travel, videographers, helicopters, etc. We didn’t have much money for paid promotion although we did do some advertising in Facebook and Twitter. I can let you know afterwards. Q: I wish a bank could do videos like that. My question is about video distribution strategy. Where did you put the video? A: We tried to post the video natively to all our channels — YouTube was the main one and Facebook was the majority of our views, but we were also in Twitter and Instagram. Q: You also mentioned there was a spike in purchase intent. How did you measure that? A: It’s not an official metric, but we just saw an increase in comments like “I’m going to get this” during the campaign’s run.