Ariel Rabinowitz
COM 400 NHBuzzFeed, Viral Twitter Challenge
Background
Even though it did not circulate as a meme or tweet structure on the internet, the question “who hurt you” has existed on the internet for a fair amount of time. In Family Guy (Season 6, Episode 4; first aired on November 4, 2007) the character Peter repeatedly asks Lionel Richie “who hurt you” while listening to Richie’s song “Hello” (Family Guy Wiki, n.d.). The writers use this question to highlight how strongly Peter feels connected to Richie through his song, so much so that Peter wants to avenge whoever caused Peter this pain.
Netflix also tweeted the question “who hurt you” last December. This tweet was covered across many online news outlets, from ENews to BBC News. The tweet uses user behavior data in a comical way, while up-keeping user privacy standards. Here the question “who hurt you” acts as more of a sense of bafflement to say, “what made you behave this way?”
Tweet with Final Engagement
In a similar way that Family Guy and Netflix used the question “who hurt you,” I wanted to appeal to humor. In drafting the tweet, I brainstormed multiple popular songs and widely seen commercials that seemed to always elicit an emotional response from listeners/viewers. I also viewed meme pages on Instagram for inspiration, and found myself engaging and sharing those that specifically related to dogs, which is what led me to my original tweet “Whenever someone asks me “who hurt you?” Me: @SarahMcLachlan’s song Eyes of an Angel”
While most people understand the reference to the ASPCA commercial that used Sarah McLachlan’s song, my classmates suggested that a screenshot of the commercial would establish my reference more effectively.
Objectives and Metrics
- Earn at least 300 engagements on my tweet on twitter
- Earn at least 3 retweets
The tweet ending up receiving an organic engagement rate of 13.9%, with a promoted engagement rate of 42.8%. The chart below specifically outlines the number of engagements the tweet received. The tweet also earned 7 retweets during the campaign.
Strategy
I decided to advertise my tweet on twitter November 23 through November 26th as it would fall after Thanksgiving and ideally hit people as they were decompressing from meeting with family and had a chance to visit with their family dog (if they have one). This also allowed a few days for Dogs on Netflix, a new Netflix docuseries, to trend on different news and social platforms. As my tweet appeals to dog lovers, I wanted to time the ad when my targeted audience would be most likely thinking about dogs.
As I wanted unique views and engagements on my tweet, I decided not to retweet it after I originally published the tweet on November 8th. I believed that my twitter followers would be significantly less likely to engage with the tweet if I published it multiple times on the same platform solely because it may an annoyance to them, thus resulting in less of their networks seeing and engaging in the tweet as well. However, I did pin the tweet to my profile and published multiple tweets within the campaign’s timeline so that incase a user found my profile via another tweet, they would immediately see the one I was promoting.
For my twitter ads, I decided on the daily budget of $5 per day and a total budget of $15. This was my first twitter ad campaign, so I was conservatively experimenting with the features twitter offered.
I also promoted my tweet by placing it on my personal Instagram story, which could potentially receive views from all 847 of my followers. Within the 24 hours of placing the screenshot of my tweet on Instagram stories, and placing the tweet link within my personal Instagram bio, it received 292 views on Instagram.
Below are the audience choice and Instagram story results.
Editorial Calendar
Date |
Time |
Platform |
Post |
|
| 11/8/18 | 12 pm ET | Final tweet
https://twitter.com/RabinowitzAriel/status/1060617483000995840 |
||
| 11/10/18 | 2 pm ET | GroupMe | Shared screenshots of two tweets deciding to submit in group chat with 12 friends | |
| 11/20/18 | 12 pm ET | Screenshot of tweet shared on personal (@ariel_rab) Instagram story |
|
|
| 11/23/18 through
11/26/18 |
6 pm ET | Began twitter ad campaign (budget of $15) to promote tweet to users who are interested in dogs and engaged in conversations about dogs and DogsOnNetflix | ||
| 11/29/18 | 12 pm ET | End of campaign |
Final Engagement
My tweet received 2,386 total impressions (1,565 organic and 821 promoted). More visibly, my tweet received 30 likes, 7 retweets and 1 comment since it was posted on November 8th.
As I was targeting a large audience on twitter, everyone who twitter identified as being interested in dogs, I believe the tweet was somewhat lost and unpopular in the vast twitter-dog community.
End Thoughts
The overall marketing strategy I used accomplished my goals taught me how to utilize Tweet ads and audience insights, and how to use different social media platforms effectively. If I were to do this campaign again, I would have posted a screenshot of it with its link again on my personal Instagram story, Instagram feed, and Facebook page to encourage more of my personal network to engage with it. These additional posts would have increased the tweet’s impressions and, if posted with an interesting caption or call to action, enhanced its media engagements. It also would have created a more even frequency of engagement throughout the campaign, as the engagements peaked following the first few days following publishing the tweet.
Resources
Family Guy Wiki: Lionel Richie (n.d.). Fandom. Retrieved on November 7th, 2018, from http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Lionel_Richie