Data center architects are engineers at the core. And what is every engineer’s favorite childhood toy? Legos! That’s because Legos allow them to build something, break it down and rebuild a better version – to turn their vision into something substantial. In the wake of Juniper Network’s MetaFabric product announcement on October 29, 2013, the brand initiated a data center conversation within its community and with new audiences by inviting key digital influencers to participate in a Lego-building challenge appropriately named, “Build the Best Lego Data Center". This allowed participants to use Legos to launch their individual data center vision which complimented the product announcement’s messaging. Content from this competition was repurposed as shareable content on its social channels. It related to community interests, was relevant to the announcement message, and spurred lots of conversation and engagement. In the end, engagements with Juniper Network’s unique content increased 75% overall across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.Goals & Propose: The engineers in Juniper Networks’ social communities value hands-on learning opportunities. Additionally, they like to celebrate their interests and share visuals of what they have created with others. This is particularly true with individuals who are known to have an authority within the network industry. Combining these insights with the goal of kicking-off a data center conversation within its communities and leveraging the exposure of its influencers prior to its MetaFabric product announcement, the brand launched its “Build the Best Lego Data Center Campaign" to reach new audiences with its data center message. Creative Approach: Eight key influencers were invited to participate in a challenge to build the best data center design out of Legos. The winners of the challenge would be rewarded with a donation to the charity of their choice. To begin, each influencer was mailed a starter kit of Lego pieces and told that they were licensed to incorporate any other Lego pieces and materials they have to create their ultimate design. What Makes It Sticky?: Each influencer brought their designs to life with content that demonstrated their interests, opinions and values in the data center. Featured on their owned blogs, the designs ranged from “Stars Wars"-inspired to “Back to the Future"-themed to data center history through the ages to an eco-friendly data center. These themes were aligned with and reflected the interests of the Juniper Networks community and incorporated content the community could relate to; they were Lego designs by network engineers for network engineers. Effectiveness on Each Platform: The winner of the influencer Build the Best Lego Data Center was first announced on the brand’s social channels. Fueled with images and content from the influencers, the next step was to expand the conversation on the brand’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn channels. In order to connect with community members on each platform, the brand leveraged engagement opportunities unique to each platform to showcase the influencers and data center Lego designs. • Twitter: Announced the winner of the championship mentioning their handle and linking to their blog post where the data center design is featured. Due to the influencer’s high profile within the community, individuals were familiar with his handle and replied with their congratulations on his victory. Additionally, the brand announced the second and third place winners on Twitter, mentioning their handles. Overall, the community not only replied to congratulate the winners, but both community members and influencers shared news regarding the contest in their own unique tweets which Juniper Networks captured and amplified through retweets. During the month of the contest engagements with the brand’s unique tweets increased 368% as compared to the month prior. • Facebook and LinkedIn: Leveraged the platforms’ photo sharing capabilities to highlight the fun and engaging data center designs the influencers created. On each platform the brand announced the winner with a post showcasing an image from the design. On Facebook the brand further leveraged the opportunities on the platform to showcase the design images from all submissions. Knowing that this light-hearted content directly represents the interests of the community, the brand established a Facebook takeover the month of the MetaFabric announcement. Identifying top images from each submission, the brand created a cover photo collage and a temporary new profile photo showcasing a Lego data center operator. In addition to the initial newsfeed post announcing the winner, a Facebook album was compiled with select images from each submission providing descriptions shared by the influencers and linking to each of the influencers’ feature blog posts. Engagements with the brand’s unique Facebook and LinkedIn content increased by 47% and 5% as compared to the month prior. Results: Driven solely through organic conversations and organic posts by the brand, the “Build the Best Lego Data Center" challenge successfully initiated a data center conversation amongst the brand’s influencers and community members. Platform breakdown below: • 7 influencer blog posts were published featuring the content • Engagements with the brand’s unique content increased 75.27% during the month of the contest as compared to the month prior. Breakdown below: - 368% increase on Twitter - 47% increase on Facebook - 5% increase on LinkedIn
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