Twitter has served as GoPro's strongest medium for our team of experts to engage directly with our community. In 2014, our social team developed key programs to make product education a major business focus for Twitter. To address this business need, #GoProChat was born.
#GoProChats were designed to engage our Twitter following with a specific subject related to GoPro and our products. The goal was to "lift the veil" on how GoPro produces amazing content, give our fan base an opportunity to engage in real time with the individuals behind the scenes at GoPro, and drive new audiences to our Twitter page.
We hosted our first #GoProChat in August 2014 on the topic of Advanced Shooting Techniques, hosted by GoPro's senior media production artist Abe Kislevitz. This chat exceeded every KPI our team had set for the event, garnering 49,000 unique engagements and 4.3 million impressions. Most remarkably, #GoProChat trended in the US organically!
Additional chats throughout 2014 leveraged our internal team of experts and social stars along with our roster of athletes and events to escalate the scale of the #GoProChat. In fall, we began delivering live streaming of the chats.
The #GoProChat on Twitter has been GoPro's fastest-growing initiative on our social platforms, delivering significant engagement, demonstrating steady positive growth, and sparking rapid expansion in just 6 months. 2014 chats garnered 837,000 engagements and 23.4 million impressions. It also leveraged our internal "celebrities" and brand ambassadors to gain maximum exposure and draw the most engagement and interest.
As inventor of the world's most versatile camera and category creator in action, adventure and lifestyle video capture, GoPro's approach to social media engagement leverages creative storytelling to share aspirational lifestyles from around the world. Twitter has also served as a medium for our team of experts to engage more directly with our community to answer and address unique questions.
In 2014, our social team developed key programs to make product education a major business focus for Twitter. We wanted to help our community create even more amazing content and knew we needed to arm them with the latest information about GoPro products, shooting techniques and editing tips. To address this business need, #GoProChat was born.
#GoProChats were designed to engage our Twitter following with a specific subject related to GoPro and our products. The goal was to "lift the veil" on how GoPro produces amazing content, give our fan base an opportunity to engage in real time with the individuals behind the scenes at GoPro, and drive new audiences to our Twitter page. We developed a tiered plan for 2014, layering additional elements to the chat framework (i.e. - GoPro athletes, events, live streaming) based on the engagement and success of the program.
We hosted our first #GoProChat in August 2014 on the topic of Advanced Shooting Techniques, in tandem with the release of a 3-part video series on the same subject on our YouTube Tutorials channel. We tapped into GoPro's senior media production artist Abe Kislevitz to lead the live interactive chat and promoted #GoProChat on our other social media pages and GoPro blog in the week leading up to the event. The first ever #GoProChat exceeded every KPI our team had set for the event, generating 49,000 unique engagements and 4.3 million impressions. Most remarkably, #GoProChat trended in the US organically!
The success of the Advanced Shooting Techniques chat taught us that our community was starving to learn how GoPro produces content and craving behind the scenes and exclusive access to the brand. As a result, the cadence and scale of #GoProChat quickly increased. We once again tapped into our internal experts (and social "stars" – individuals with significant social media followings of their own) for a September chat, "All Things Mounts," which addressed tips and tricks for mounting GoPro cameras to get unreal footage in all scenarios and environments. The chat garnered more than 200,000 engagements and 4.8 million impressions.
In late October we leveraged the launch of the HERO4 cameras as the subject matter for a #GoProChat, earning 132,000 impressions and 4.6 million impressions.
We added the star power of our athletes and a new live streaming element (with partner Brand Live) to our November #GoProChat on "All Things Snow." Female snowboard phenoms Jamie Anderson, Elena Hight and Hannah Teeter helped our Twitter community get ready for the snow season, and we hosted an exclusive live video event with all three athletes immediately following the chat. The live streaming element offered users the opportunity for real-time viewing of the chat, which made the experience feel more authentic, and also provided a platform for the chat beyond Twitter. The introduction of athletes and live streaming garnered a significant increase in engagements (200,000) and impressions (5.4 million) for the November chat.
We wrapped 2014 with an "All Things Surf" chat with Jamie O'Brien and Anthony Walsh, live from the North Shore of Oahu and the Vans Triple Crown surf event, where both athletes were competing. The chat invited GoPro fans to ask questions related to capturing content in and on the water from two of our most prolific athlete producers and also included a live streaming event after the chat. All Things Surf was our most successful chat of the year reaching 255,000 engagements and 4.3 million impressions.
#GoProChat is now a staple of our social strategy. Looking ahead, we will leverage our existing assets (internal experts, staff, events) to bring the online and offline world together in bigger ways. We will continue to derive insights from Twitter to refine the subject matter and content based on engagement and reach, and plan to further segment chats to reach verticals audiences that are passionate about specific sports.
We also plan to evolve #GoProChat to new platforms including Facebook Q&A and Google Plus Hangouts to give our fans and followers even more opportunity to get content and get closer to the brand.