Campaign Objective: Drive engagement with an original #BirdieSanders meme through organic and promoted tweets. Engagements are measured through a Twitter webcard and Imgur “views.”
Imgur webcard:
Twitter card:
https://cards.twitter.com/cards/18ce54add3g/1mikn
Analysis of Results:
The views on my Imgur image, as well as, the engagement with my Twitter Webcard throughout the course of my Twitter Ads campaign turned out to be quite successful. I racked up a total of 267 views on my #BirdieSanders Imgur link and I garnered 23 clicks on my Webcard via my promoted tweets. Engagement results also indicate that my campaign received 53 clicks, which include: clicks to links, the Website Card, likes, hashtags, my profile and other Tweet details in my ad. This includes clicks I am not billed for.
However, this engagement did not occur initially. I found that I had to develop creative organic tweets to engage influencers. I began asking influencers questions rather than statements. Throughout the viral content challenge, I found that people were less likely retweet statements but more likely to reply to questions.
I posed a question at NPR Political Reporter @SamSanders. Sam Sanders covers the intersection of culture, pop culture, and politics in the 2016 election, according to NPR.org.
I deemed Sam Sanders as a key influencer for my viral content challenge because of his interest in trending topics and making politics relatable. For example, he does this through a weekly segment on Snapchat entitled, “Meme of the Week.”
My tweet @SamSanders:
.@SamSanders, Why is #BernieSanders so #meme-worthy? How does #viral content, like #BirdieSanders, impact elections? https://t.co/28kjvH9yqg
— Dana Wakeley (@DanaWakeley) April 6, 2016
Sam Sander replied to my question utilizing a quote tweet. His engagement with my tweet prompted 4 retweets, 1 reply and 11 likes. My idea of targeting a relevant political influencer proved to be successful.
@SamSanders quote Tweet:
Very good q. Had a good convo with a People For Bernie cofounder last week. More to come. https://t.co/zvmglp3uBB
— Sam Sanders (@samsanders) April 6, 2016
Further, I experimented with refining my audience midway through my Twitter Ads campaign. I did this by altering the location(s) of my audience profile to a more narrow segment. Initially, I targeted people located in the U.S. and later refined my audience by targeting locations that either recently had a democratic primary or have an upcoming democratic primary. I did this with the assumption that these Twitter users are more likely than the other populations in the U.S. to actively engage with trending Bernie Sanders and Democratic primary hashtags. I believe refining the location targeting helped keep the level of engagement up in the latter half of my campaign.
Recent and upcoming Democratic primary locations:
I created a total of 5 possible creatives for Twitter Ads to serve. I found that some tweets worked better than others. See below for a tweet that garnered 14 link clicks versus a tweet that only gained 1. I believe the tweet with lower engagement did not include enough relevant hashtags, influencers, and engaging copy, as well as, having a lower ad spend.
Tweet with 14 clicks:
Tweet with 1 click:
Overall, my viral content challenge campaign was successful. Although my campaign began a week after the #BirdieSanders hashtag initially began trending, the meme remained relevant due to the current presidential primaries.
Wow, super cool that you targeted by location. I think that was a neat way to drive engagement. Also, great meme. Very creative. Although I am not a Bernie supporter, I chuckled.
I kept seeing your meme on my Twitter timeline and I thought it was both funny and relevant! Great idea targeting by primary location and tweeting it at Sam Sanders. So cool that he responded!