Chicago-based TV station WGN America was looking to boost ratings with a younger audience. Although it refreshed its content with shows such as “South Park" and ‘Entourage," its ratings were lagging. Story’s challenge was to drive offline behavior—namely, tune-in—by developing engaged online communities. Story approached WGN America with a focused plan to use the power of social media to drive viewership to a single show: “How I Met Your Mother." Story proposed a three-stage campaign to grow ratings and amass awareness with an efficient and flexible use of hypertargeted media and engaging content focused on empowering the show’s “SuperFans," which would help the content spread to the traditional and casual fans. Facebook played a crucial role in this strategy, with the "Meet at MacLaren's" Facebook Page acting as a thriving hub of content and conversations for "How I Met Your Mother" SuperFans - http://www.fb.me/MeetAtMacLarens. The “Meet at MacLaren’s" Facebook Page, conceived and managed by Story Worldwide on behalf of WGN America, curates and manages content and supervises conversations about the show with the goal of motivating fans to share and engage more often by distinguishing the diehard fan contributors among them. Upon starting 2012 with 180,000 fans, WGN America tasked Story with the goal of helping them surpass one million Facebook fans by year’s end. Using Sponsored Stories and cleverly written engagement ads, the goal was surpassed in a mere five months. Facebook high-five!! From June to October of 2012, Story focused on targeted acquisition of highly-relevant fans while supporting ongoing “Meet at MacLaren’s" Facebook page campaigns. By blending Sponsored Stories, Page Posts, and engagement ads supporting specific promotions, the Page had accumulated over 550,000 new Likes by the end of October. Here is the creative for a few of our legen...wait for it...DARY Facebook Ads!! http://j.mp/U3tuh1 By the end of 2012, the Facebook advertising campaign for “Meet at MacLaren’s" had served more than 2 billion impressions, more than 3 million actions and acquired 1,321,735 new fans with a budget-saving cost-per-like of $0.41 and cost-per-click of $0.17. Most importantly, the paid-media efforts that drove a 700%+ increase in new fans has brought the right fans. The Page frequently enjoys engagement rates of 10 percent to 20 percent on any given day—unheralded compared with many well-known brands that earn less than 1 percent.
