Increasing brand awareness using social media

Knowing what’s hotA key aspect of Ptarmigan Bell Pottinger’s online strategy for the Leeds Corn Exchange was to increase the Twitter and Facebook audience and to position the Corn Exchange as the heart of cultural activity in the city.

Thorough research was undertaken to identify key bloggers, tweeters and forums. From this research the team established what were the hottest topics and events in Leeds.

An event called Bettakultcha was chosen as a growing cultural event that could provide the perfect platform for the Corn Exchange to grow its online audience.

Bettakultcha is a night of Powerpoint presentations from people who are passionate about a specific subject. The rules are simple:

• Anyone can do a presentation, but no sales pitches are allowed.

•All presentations will only be 20 slides long.

•Each slide will last only 15 seconds before it goes on the next one.

•When 5 minutes finishes so does the presentation

The Event

The event sold out (270 tickets) within three days of going on sale. We held five pairs of tickets back to giveaway as a competition in the week before the event. The ticket giveaway prompted 75 entries and produced 89 mentions of @leedscornex on Twitter.

During the event we used the hashtag #Bettakultcha which allowed the event to become the fourth most trending topic on Twitter nationally and the number one trending topic in Yorkshire.

Social media channels were full of people talking positively about the Leeds Corn Exchange and best of all sharing photo’s of the building.

Sharing the evening via Twitpic

During the day of the event and the day after the following results were recorded:

• 840 mentions of #Bettakultcha • 404 mentions of @leedscornex• 30 images of the Leeds Corn Exchange shared• Twitter followers rose by 25%• 50% increase of hits on Leeds Corn Exchange Facebook page.• Facebook ‘Likes’ increased by 20%• Hits to the Leeds Corn Exchange website increased by 50%

compared to the last four Tuesdays.

Results

Turning social media into column inches with regional press and local bloggers

The Guardian Leeds. 02.03.11 Click here for full story.

Wired.co.uk. 01.03.11. Click here for full story.

Orchard.com. 01.03.11. Click here for full story.

Matt Edgar’s Blog. 03.03.11Click here for full story.

Bettakultcha Blog. 03.03.11. Click here for full story.

My Life in Leeds Blog. 08.03.11Click here for full story.

Increasing footfall

The weekend following Bettakultcha was the highest footfall for 2011 and up 20% compared to the same weekend in 2010.