A Successful MySpace Social Media Campaign
There is a common perception that marketing campaigns on sites like Facebook and MySpace do not produce the ROI that other online marketing efforts do. Social media marketing is still very new and one reason for the lack of success is that a lot of marketers are just not experienced in marketing to these types of communities. Last year I wrote abut A Successful Facebook Marketing Campaign from Target.
Adage recently had an article about how successful Disney has been on MySpace continually revitalizing the MySpace profile it created for its 2006 dance-themed movie “Step Up”.
From the article:
The proof is in the numbers: box-office receipts, DVD sales, number of friends on MySpace and results from a Nielsen NRG study, to be more specific. Each provided Disney concrete evidence that continually revitalizing the MySpace profile it created for its 2006 dance-themed movie “Step Up” didn’t just help boost the movie’s DVD sales and turn its follow-up, “Step Up 2 the Streets,” into a surprise box-office hit; it also managed to expand the movie’s already sizeable and enthusiastic group of fans. The movie’s MySpace profile has more than 156,000 friends.
A tactic that worked very well for Disney was that they realized that one of the keys to being successful within social networks is not to continually hit consumers over the head with a marketing message but rather to maintain a steady stream of contact with them.
One of Disney’s big wins from this campaign was that they are able to measure the success of its MySpace campaign. And the numbers show how big an impact the MySpace campaign had on the success of the movie.
An in-theater Nielsen NRG survey conducted during the sequel’s opening weekend concluded that “Step Up 2 the Streets” was noticed more than its predecessor because of its MySpace profile. Compare its findings with those of a similar study conducted during the first film’s opening weekend: 49% of total respondents saw an ad or information for the movie on MySpace, compared with 37% who saw information on its profile for the original movie. More than twice as many males 25 and younger saw information about the sequel (57%) compared with the original (28%). Among females, the numbers were closer but still higher for the sequel (54%) than the original (46%). And in probably the most interesting finding, 58% of those with a MySpace profile recalled seeing an ad or information for the sequel, while only 26% of those without a profile remembered seeing anything about the movie. Those numbers were also up from 2006 — 50% vs. 13%.
Jack Pan, VP-marketing strategy and special projects for Disney, said the lesson to be learned is that social networks allow marketers to more efficiently expand their group of consumers while getting the most out of already established marketing properties.
“It’s one of the great things you can do on MySpace,” he said. “We had a robust group of people who were interested in this movie, so we felt it was natural to just continue the dialogue with them as opposed to starting a new one and rebuilding another community for the sequel.”
The MySpace page was not just an advertisement for the movie. Disney spent time and effort in building up the MySpace site by allowing users to interact with the movie’s director and stars, participate in a variety of contests, win a chance to appear in the movie and gain admittance to an advance “Black Curtain” screening of the film, where they met and spoke to stars of the movie and its soundtrack.
All of these moves not only built brand awareness but also helped create armies of evangelists for the brand.
“The community part is big for us, because creating a forum for discussion and allowing a group to collectively share their interests with each other is like having a digital street team,” Mr. Pan said. “By giving these ambassadors content to play with and opportunities to be invested in, we feel like we’re providing value to them, and their enthusiasm can do a lot of marketing on our behalf. You see a much more lasting and viral impact than you would through other forms of media.”
In addition the MySpace site went through different iterations depending on where the movie in the Disney pipeline. The same URL was used for both movies and the site will be repurposed again for the DVD release of “Step up 2 the Streets. This continuity of URL and updated content is one reason why the Step Up” MySpace profile has 156,000-plus friends, and that didn’t come from one effort; it came from a succession of efforts. They have grown their community and kept it engaged by giving them reasons to keep coming back.”
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (8) : Mar 24th, 2008
March 25th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Well, it’s pretty obvious that SMM or SMO is the best way of product or service advertising, outwitting the television and print media
I’m new to this and really need more articles that tackle not just the objective definition of it but articles that delves on the ISSUES of SMO or SMM.
March 27th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
People really get the wrong end of the stick. It’s about being subtle with your advertising and showing or saying something really interesting. Take for example EepyBird. It is fair enough to look at Disney as a multi-national corporation spreading their content through MySpace, but this is just two guys doing what they love who are noiw world famous. They are creating something new and original and at the same time, they are creating a viral market for themselves. Here are some good case studies / analysis of social media optimisation which is where I came across this.
I think the main points are -
- Don’t make it too commercial (should feel user contributed)
- Start a conversation (don’t YELL which is what traditional advertising does)
- Make it viral / “re-postable” so that the difficult distribution work is done for you.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[…] A Successful MySpace Social Media Campaign While not all businesses will find MySpace to be suitable platform for their Social Media campaigns, those who might will find inspiration in this post on the Social Media Optimization blog. It details the success that Disney had during its recent campaign to promote its “Step Up” movie franchise. […]
March 28th, 2008 at 10:57 am
[…] Henry Reed left a comment after reading our post on A Successful MySpace Social Media Campaign. Harry pointed out another site that had some additional SMM Case Studies […]
March 29th, 2008 at 7:22 am
[…] Disney’s continued MySpace Step Up 2 the Streets success yields a surprise box-office hit; it also managed to expand the movie’s already sizeable and enthusiastic group of fans. The movie’s MySpace profile has more than 156,000 friends (March 24, 2008, AdAge via Social media Optimization). […]
March 30th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
[…] » A Successful MySpace Social Media Campaign - Social Media Optimization There is a common perception that marketing campaigns on sites like Facebook and MySpace do not produce the ROI that other online marketing efforts do. […]
April 4th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
[…] 1) Advertising supported - This is the main way social networks are trying to generate revenue. It’s good for the users as they get free access in exchange for seeing a few ads. This has the potential to be great for advertisers, too, as they can often target users based on various demographic info and interests. But here’s a dirty secret–click-through rates on social networks (especially Facebook) are horrible. Last I saw the CTR was about .04% …. This actually makes sense, because people go on social networks for specific purposes—they want to check out their friends profiles, pictures, videos, etc. Social network users aren’t in a shopping mindset and so aren’t likely to be looking for information about products or services. But, social networking is still a good option for increasing brand awareness as Disney found out with its MySpace page for “Step Up” and “Step Up 2 the Streets.” […]
May 5th, 2008 at 6:02 am
[…] A Successful MySpace Social Media Campaign […]