Consumer trust is shifting from branded content to content provided by peers and influencers, who now dominate the conversation in the social media space. But in the Big Data category, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is far behind its competitors in establishing relationships with these influencers. So how did we get these influencers to write about HPE in a way that's relevant and meaningful to our target?
It's simple. We made these key influencers the hero—by providing them a seat on a social-media fueled live-stream panel of experts, co-hosted with a B2B, IT-focused community. Our hand-selected group of influencers were incentivized with self-promotional content to push out shareable HPE messages. And instead of using our panel to just talk to our users, we opened it up for participation—encouraging our audience to submit their questions through a live Twitter chat during the webcast. Our target became our content, and the influencers we identified became genuine brand advocates, successfully demonstrating the HPE brand's ability to bring users something they wanted, something they hadn't seen and something they considered valuable.
50-something minutes later, we ended up with a thought-provoking and engaging discussion that had a far higher score against our clients KPI's and even Spiceworks' (our webcast partner) best case predictions.
It didn't end with the panel. We also provided hero cuts for influencers to continue the conversation.
Activated a network of incluencers
• 30% increase in insider following due to event and outreach efforts
• The influencers got to teach, learn, and increase their following the Big Data space.
Created a groundswell of interest
• 227% exceeded registration benchmark
• 378% exceeded attendance benchmark
• HPE received unbiased acclaim and validation from Big Data influencers.
Ignited engagement
• 42% higher event engagement than the key competitor average.
• Users liked HPE more because the panel created and delivered the content they enjoyed.
