How do you dethrone Google temporarily? You execute one of the most creative marketing campaigns of the year. It yielded 1.1 billion media impressions, took precious market share from Google, and got a book on the best-seller list. Bing teamed up with Jay-Z to launch his new book Decode by plastering all 320 pages of it — one page at a time — in different locations and in very unusual ways around the world for 30 days before the book was released for sale.
Primary Goal of Campaign
To drive millions of people away from Google to start using BING for Internet search and maps.
The Campaign
They began by staying true to each brand weaving Jay-Z’s very personal story, his journey through life and where it took him around the world, into Bing’s search and mapping technologies every day of the 30 day campaign. Each page of the book was reproduced and put into the real world in a number of innovative ways including on billboards, the top of parking garages, on building walls where Jay-Z grew up, to the bottom of a swimming pool. A website was created for the campaign where each day new clues were released on Twitter, Facebook, and Bing. You would then use Bing’s search and maps to “decode” the clue and find the location of the page and be the first to locate where the pages released that day were around the world. Over the 30 days, all the pages of the book were released so by the end of the campaign, you would have read the book.
Results
Average time a person was on the campaign’s landing page was 11 minutes.
Bing got 11.7% increase in visits to their search engine which finally tipped them into the Top 10 of most visited websites in the world.
The campaign yielded 1.1 billion media impressions
Jay-Z’s Facebook page grew by 1,000,000 fans
Jay-Z’s book, Decode was on the best seller list for 19 straight weeks.
Every major news channel and newspaper covered the campaign.
Large numbers of people started using BING for search and mapping over Google
This campaign became part of popular culture for an entire month.
I’m a huge fan of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Besides being an avid fan, I used to work there as a national host and producer for its CBC Radio One network. So it came sort of naturally that I started a fan page on Facebook for it. Not even two years later, and the Page now has 48,000 very engaged fans — far more than any other CBC page (official or not). Sometimes it’s so busy that within 15 minutes of posting something on the page, more than a hundred people have commented on it.
If you’d like to grow your page zero to 48,000 fans, here are some tips I recommend:
Set Up an Auto-Publishing Twitter Account
Facebook lets you automatically tweet out page updates onto a Twitter account, so I established @aboutcbc on Twitter and it serves as a promotional channel — whenever I post something on the Page, this account tweets out the post with a direct link to the post. This reminds people to check the Page and, if they’re not already following the page, to Like it.
Follow Lots of Obscure Content Sources
In my feed reader, I have a tonne of sources that publish content about the CBC — sources like the CBC’s official news web site and some program web sites. But I find the links that generate the most engagement come from sort of obscure sources. For instance, I follow this great (but horribly designed) blog about the Canadian radio industry, this blog for a band calledPeter Mansbridge and the CBCs (totally unrelated to the CBC), and follow an RSS search for CBC on eBay. I find the more random and offbeat the content, the more engagement happens.
Here’s an example of a recent eBay find:
I wish eBay had an affiliate program — usually things I post from eBay on the Page sell within minutes. Here’s another example: Note the last comment of someone telling everyone they’d bought it:
Actively Engage
A few hours after I post something on the page, I usually try to go back and engage in a little conversation with some of the commenters. This, of course, drives more comments and the engagement loop remains solid. Putting a little bit of you in the page goes a long way to humanizing the content. .
Used to be, newspapers wanted to the one place people would go to see all the news — whether from your part of town to the other side of the world. But, in a world with 24/7 TV news, should newspapers continue to put its resources toward being all things to all people?
The Chicago Tribune is trying to counter that approach. It now offers readers 87 different hyper-localized editions, representing more than 100 communities in Chicago’s suburbs. Most of the content comes from readers themselves. This Triblocal.com project operates separately from the main newspaper. Revenue is generated from “reverse publishing” content from the web into 21 weekly newspapers that serve clusters of communities, each of which have its own web site.
The project experienced rapid growth in 2009, adding 11 newspapers from January to Oct. 1 of last year.
JumpReach Solution used its viral marketing software to enable Mad Mariner to increase its subscriber base. It helped the current subscribers refer the website to their contacts very rapidly and simply. the company reported a rise of 22% in free trial registrations, right in the initial month and is currently increasing rapidly. For every person who sends the invite, two fresh subscribers register for free trial. Case study
Hachette Filipacchi launched Shock Magazine, a publication with minimum write-ups and maximum shocking photos in an innovative way by building a nationwide street team to create consciousness among readers. Partnering with RepNation, it deployed these teams in 100 markets to reach out using programs, posters and online networking. It asked members to upload photos and compete to win the best photo title and a place in the magazine. Case study
I was immediately impressed by National Geographic’s robust Facebook Fan page, touting an impressive 470,555 fans. National Geographic wisely updates the page’s status one to three times a week and provides a lot of engaging content in the Facebook tabs, met by lots of interaction by their fans. With most brand to fan interaction happening on the wall, thousands of fans have “Liked” content or commented positively even when branded content is shared straight from nationalgeographic.com. Taking a closer look, it appears that National Geographic isn’t just sharing this content, but actively promoting fan activity and interaction. For instance, instead of sharing a survey that lives on their site, they posted the link to the wall and commented, “Post your score and challenge your friends”. Tailoring this content in this way is a great way to welcome and jump start involvement. Case Study
SELF’s Facebook Fan Page is currently being used as a way to share more of SELF content in another medium. I tend to like SELF content, and I think judging from the activity on the page, its audiences are using its content posted to the Wall as a forum for discussions. Overall, the look and feel of the fan page mirrors that of the magazine. As you can see, the following shows how SELF has transformed the left side bar of their Facebook fan page with images and content that lead to their website. This continues as a visual down the entire left side bar of the page. In my opinion, this is a good usage of the real estate, and doesn’t quite feel like an ad.
