EQUINIX - B2B Demand Generation Marketing Agency · PDF fileBIGDATA IOT SAMSUNGGSYM GARTNER...

EQUINIX:

HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO

ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES

FIRSTBASE

EQUINIX:



Category number: 7

Category name: Best use of social media

Programme/initiative name: Equinix – Harnessing social media to engage C-level audiences

Agency: First Base

Brand or client: Equinix

URL:http://www.equinix.co.uk/

Summary:

Global interconnection and data centre company Equinix operates in a crowded marketplace where awareness and understanding within the C-level community of its unique proposition are critical to securing large enterprise deals.

First Base, the social media agency of record, was commissioned to help maximise Equinix’s presence at the Gartner ITxpo event in October 2014, where CIOs and senior IT executives converge to learn about transformative business strategies.

A social media campaign combining socially optimised content with an integrated organic and paid social media programme was designed to maximise online reach for the Equinix brand, drive engagement and clickthrough traffic to a ‘book a meeting’ event landing page.

The social campaign increased visitor traffic to Equinix’s website by almost 50% during the event, with Twitter and LinkedIn activity driving in excess of 4,000 URL click-throughs to Equinix branded content.

Operating before, during and after the Gartner event, the social campaign delivered 331,000 page impressions from the target prospect audience, engagement on LinkedIn and Twitter averaged 4.5% and the activity generated 500 visits to the ‘book a meeting’ landing page.

www.hitfirstbase.com tel:02035426644|email:[email protected]

HOW THE EVENT UNFOLDED THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

See the top trends, topics and influencers from this year’s

European ITxpo event as told through social media users.

GARTNER SYMPOSIUM/

ITXPO BARCELONA 2014 HUGE SOCIAL COMMUNITY INVOLVED

4,000+ people attend in person, but with a social reach of over 9 million – join the community.

14,152 VOLUME OF

#GARTNERSYM

TWEETS

TOP FIVE MOST

MENTIONED

SUBJECTS - GUY KAWASAKI

- SMART DATA

- SIEMEN’S SIEGFRIED

RUSSWURM- ERICSSON CONSUMER LAB

- BIMODAL IT

MOST INFLUENTIAL

TWEETERS

@BLACKBERRY – BLACKBERRY

@GARTNER_INC – GARTNER

@MR_GADGET – ARNOLD ARANEZ

@MCEWENROBBIE – ROBBIE MCEWEN

@LEWISPUGH – LEWIS PUGH

@AMBASSADORCIO – ROBERT SCHMIDT

@CHADWICKHALSE – CHADWICK HALSE

@AUTHOR_JEFF – JEFF JOSEPH AUTHOR

@VALAAFSHAR – VALA AFSHAR

TOP 10 HASHTAGS

USED ALONGSIDE

#GARTNERSYM

#CIO#CLOUD#DIGITALBUSINESS

#PEERCONNECT

#BIGDATA#IOT#SAMSUNGGSYM

#MOBILE#BBMMEETINGS

#GARTNER

64,166,429 IMPRESSIONS

LANGUAGES UPDATES WERE SHARED IN

10,540GARTNER ITXPO LINKEDIN GROUP MEMBERS

299DISCUSSIONS567COMMENTS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

8,982 RETWEETS

THE EQUINIX EXPERIENCE AT GARTNER ITXPO 2014

This year’s event was the most inspirational yet – incredibly insightful speakers,

motivational stories of innovation and new possibilities and many interesting

networking conversations with our customers, peers and CIO leaders.

What social industry leaders and event attendees discussed most.

The social universe creates popular leaders and influencers – learn

‘who’s who’ for Gartner ITxpo social leadership and get connected.

HOT TOPICS AND TRENDING THEMES

www.equinix.co.uk

GARTNER ITXPO BARCELONA IS A GLOBAL SOCIAL EVENT

The active #GartnerSYM social community stretches far beyond Europe

– see where you could reach.

Sources: Twitonomy hashtag search tool

Sources: Equinix attendee anecdotal information

Sources: Gartner ITxpo LinkedIn group analysis, Commun.it, Hashtagify.me

Sources: Gartner ITxpo LinkedIn group analysis. Commun.it. Hashtagify.me. Twitonomy

4,156MENTIONS9,985,570 TOTAL REACH

ENGLISH DUTCH FRENCH

SPANISH GERMAN ITALIAN

SIX KEY EQUINIX PARTNERS

#1 ATTENDED

SOLUTION PROVIDER

SESSION WITH

176 INDUSTRY

LEADERS

IN SESSION 50+ AUGMENTED

REALITY

DATA CENTRE TOURS

THROUGH GOOGLE

CARDBOARD AND

IPAD VR 170+ ATTENDEES

FOR EQUINIX

WELCOME DRINKS

www.equinix.co.uk


See the top trends, topics and influencers from this year’s European ITxpo event as told through social media users.

GARTNER SYMPOSIUM/ITXPO BARCELONA 2014

HUGE SOCIAL COMMUNITY INVOLVED


14,152 VOLUME OF #GARTNERSYM TWEETS

TOP FIVE MOST MENTIONED SUBJECTS - GUY KAWASAKI- SMART DATA- SIEMEN’S SIEGFRIED RUSSWURM- ERICSSON CONSUMER LAB- BIMODAL IT

MOST INFLUENTIAL TWEETERS @BLACKBERRY – BLACKBERRY









TOP 10 HASHTAGS USED ALONGSIDE #GARTNERSYM#CIO#CLOUD#DIGITALBUSINESS#PEERCONNECT#BIGDATA#IOT#SAMSUNGGSYM#MOBILE#BBMMEETINGS#GARTNER


LANGUAGES UPDATES WERE SHARED IN 10,540GARTNER ITXPO LINKEDIN GROUP MEMBERS

299DISCUSSIONS

567COMMENTS ON A GLOBAL SCALE

8,982 RETWEETS


This year’s event was the most inspirational yet – incredibly insightful speakers, motivational stories of innovation and new possibilities and many interesting networking conversations with our customers, peers and CIO leaders.

What social industry leaders and event attendees discussed most. The social universe creates popular leaders and influencers – learn ‘who’s who’ for Gartner ITxpo social leadership and get connected.


www.equinix.co.uk


The active #GartnerSYM social community stretches far beyond Europe – see where you could reach.





4,156MENTIONS

9,985,570 TOTAL REACH




#1 ATTENDED SOLUTION PROVIDER SESSION WITH

176 INDUSTRY LEADERS IN SESSION

50+ AUGMENTED REALITY DATA CENTRE TOURS THROUGH GOOGLE CARDBOARD AND IPAD VR

170+ ATTENDEES FOR EQUINIX WELCOME DRINKS

www.equinix.co.uk

EQUINIX:



About the client company

Equinix is a global interconnection and data centre company with customers in 33 markets across five continents. Founded in 1998, today it operates more than 100 data centres worldwide interconnecting people, locations, clouds and data.

Strategy

Primarily, Equinix needed to increase its penetration in the already highly saturated data centre market. This demanded a new marketing approach that could prove its unique value and relevance. A social media campaign was the ideal choice to engage prospects, customers and stakeholders and firmly position Equinix as ‘a catalyst for service expansion and revenue growth’ as well as a provider that ‘accelerates business performance’.

Objectivesofthecampaign

The campaign aligned the Equinix brand with the theme running through Gartner ITxpo: how a powerful convergence of forces (mobile, social, cloud and information) is reshaping how business gets done now and in the future. The wider goals were to increase Equinix’s brand exposure, drive more traffic to its website, and generate new leads.

The target audience

The campaign was designed to appeal to CIOs and the C-Suite, an audience notoriously difficult to engage with. Meanwhile, Gartner’s social sphere is a noisy and active arena, typically dominated by industry heavyweights.

For First Base, this meant ensuring Equinix was reaching the right demographic, at the right time, with the relevant content and messaging. This challenge was compounded by the fact that Equinix’s branded social media channels were immature, each with a comparatively small audience.


EQUINIX:



Media,channelsortechniquesused

Organicsocialcalendar:3 months of Twitter and LinkedIn posts - as well as adhoc posts based on updates from Equinix team members and also a commissioned blogger attending the event. All posts for regional countries were translated into the regional language – NL, FR, DE.

3x Twitter posts per day; 1-2x LinkedIn posts per day for the whole campaign. Posts were also crafted and sent out regularly in internal emails, ‘spread the word’ style, to Equinix advocates.

Researchandaudienceacquisition:Follower acquisition of key researchers and analysts and also journalists and Gartner spokespeople. Daily hashtag research and testing for trends and popularity. Daily research into trending topics and most active users utilising the event hashtag – this was used in daily round up posts and was also sent to Equinix advocates to encourage them to get involved with the conversation.

Responsivesociallistening:Monitoring general Gartner feeds for trending topics relevant to Equinix and ensuring it became part of the conversation. With the use of Spundge, First Base published strong imagery in real-time, ac-companied by organic posts, as well as paid-for posts promoting the Equinix sign-up landing page.

Sociallyoptimisedcontent:- Twitter Poll – created with a view to utilise the findings from the poll for informed future content such as blogs, infographics etc. Used to establish Equinix as a thought leader, market commentator and insight provider. Promoted via organic and paid media. Poll questions were related to why users are using the cloud, if at all and their thoughts on the future use of the cloud.

- Infographics, pre and post event – used to to tell the social story of the Gartner event.

- Research went into the most socially engaged users, hot topics, hashtags, users and themes to come out of the event. Promoted via organic and paid media.

Paid Media: Twitter and LinkedIn paid posts were crafted based on best performing organic posts and most popu-lar hashtags e.g AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Two versions of every post were created, these were A/B tested with images, hashtags, CTA and copy. Any post which dropped below 1% CTR was immediately amended or taken down. Each post was targeted to specific countries.


EQUINIX:



Media,channelsortechniquesused(...Cont’)

Advocate guidance: First Base provided Equinix advocates with social guidelines and an activation toolkit to use their personal handles and profiles to share Equinix content. We provided a number of opti-mised social posts, and ‘spread the word’ email communications for Equinix teams to cut and paste directly.

Timescalesofthecampaign

Recognising the importance of engaging CIOs early, as well as during the event itself, First Base developed a research phase within its campaign execution. This empowered us with a deeper insight into Equinix’s market, prospects and key influencers.

First Base employed social listening techniques three months prior to the event in order to build a body of knowledge from which to position Equinix as a credible and valued brand within the Gartner sphere. This included:

• Daily monitoring and recording of Twitter conversations• Tracking trending topics, key influencers and hashtags using Twitter stream creation• Monitoring of Gartner LinkedIn group conversations

The key findings were also passed to Equinix’s team and other advocates, with actionable advice on how to engage the C-Suite more effectively.

In tandem with the research phase of the campaign, First Base mapped the buyer journey for users across 12 channels and six countries. A social calendar was then developed for LinkedIn and Twitter, which plotted specific messaging and CTAs, outlining the precise moments for publication in the run up to ITxpo.

Post event, First Base and Equinix continued with social activity in order to maintain momen-tum and maximise the value of the content assets produced. The post-event infographic (in-cluded with this submission) told the social story of how the event unfolded with an overview of trending topics and the most influential users. This content also incorporated Equinix’s pro-motional statistics.

Budgets

These details were provided to judges in the original submission but are commercially sensitive and therefore confidential.



Results

82,461 organic impressions

248,576 paid impressions

331,000 impressions in total for Equinix branded content

Traffic to the Equinix website jumped by almost 50% compared to the same period in the previous 12 months.

Twitter and LinkedIn activity, including both paid and non-paid activity, led to Equinix branded content attracting in excess of 4,000 URL clicks. This included over 500 visits to the ‘book a meeting’ page alone. 55% of LinkedIn clicks were from c-level users

Best performing Twitter CTR – 3.08% - industry avg. 1%

Best performing LinkedIn CTR – 0.294% - industry avg. 0.1%

Overall Twitter CTR – 1.8%

Overall LinkedIn CTR – 0.201%

Twitter poll page received over 1,000 visits in total, from both paid and organic activity.




















299DISCUSSIONS


8,982 RETWEETS





www.equinix.co.uk







4,156MENTIONS









www.equinix.co.uk




















299DISCUSSIONS


8,982 RETWEETS





www.equinix.co.uk







4,156MENTIONS









www.equinix.co.uk

EQUINIX:



EQUINIX:



Clienttestimonial

MilenaMitova,InterimCampaignsManager,Equinix:

“This hugely successful campaign marked a new level of social performance for us as a company. It was planned by First Base as a coordinated part of our marketing mix, with a brief to raise our awareness and engage the hard to reach CIO audience. It was critical we worked with an agency partner that not only understood our business model, technology and vision, but who could trans-late our needs into a cohesive and innovative strategy. Right from the start of working with First Base, it was clear we’d found a responsive agency, one that knew how to leverage our investment in Gartner ITxpo to maximise our presence for accelerated awareness. Ranking in the top ten most mentioned brands across all social channels was an incredible achievement and has generated a healthy pipeline and community of contacts for us to nurture.”


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