Client Results: Microsoft - Facebook Page
Security & Digital Services Practice case study
Overview
A Salute to Our Troops is a national program honoring the many faces of courage and inspiration belonging to individuals who demonstrate selfless dedication to our country. In the USO tradition of entertaining the troops, one of the program initiatives provides free tickets for the troops and their families to attend Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular in New York City, giving them a chance to spend valuable time with their families during the holiday season. Working on behalf of Microsoft, Merritt Group set up, promoted and maintained a custom-branded A Salute to the Troops Facebook page to drive engagement and participation in the events that took place throughout the 2008 Veteran’s Day weekend celebration in New York City.
Challenge
In 2008, the idea of leveraging Facebook for corporate public relations was still in its infancy and a new tactic for the Microsoft A Salute to Our Troops campaign. Merritt Group leveraged its social media best practices to develop a group page, which would serve as a cost-effective news and information distribution platform and a social engagement tool that would drive awareness of the initiative among the intended audience – service men and women and their families.
Strategy and campaign
The team planned and executed between September and December 2008:
- Research - Merritt evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of each forms of Facebook presence i.e. pages, groups and causes to select the optimal platform for the A Salute to Our Troops page. Merritt also researched and evaluated a variety of existing Facebook Group pages to establish best practices in page design and determine what page elements would drive the greatest level of engagement. A comprehensive list of other Facebook groups with similar/complementary causes was developed for campaign outreach and promotion of the USO/Microsoft page.
- Customize the look and feel of the page - Merritt built out capabilities including: discussion board, wall posts; photos albums, links to outside resources, registration information and content about the event; calendar features that reminded users of important dates and registration deadlines; video albums for posting video podcasts and videos captured at the events.
- Multimedia Production - Merritt Group scripted, filmed and edited a video podcast and gathered photos from the previous year’s events and posted them to the pre-launch Facebook page. The team also developed and organized a “New Media Ambassador” program to distribute Microsoft Mobile Devices so participants could capture and instantly upload photo and video content.
- Facebook Group Administrator Outreach Campaign - The campaign then reached out to the administrators of these groups with a complementary cause focuses and drafted a promotional message for participating group administrators to distribute to their members in an effort to drive traffic and membership to the A Salute to Our Troops Facebook page.
Results
The awareness generated by the Facebook campaign significantly increased registration and participation in the weekend’s events and actively engaged users of the online social network.
- Hundreds of messages of support from Facebook users were posted to the page.
- The promotional message reached more than 10,000 Facebook users and drove 100s of members to the USO/Microsoft Facebook group.
- Participants in the “Digital Ambassador” program uploaded dozens of photos and short videos to the Facebook page.
When they win, so do we
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