Social influencing unmasked with Phantom of the Opera project
鈥淚nstead of being marketers planning the logistics of a digital influencer campaign, this group of students got to be the influencers through their own social stories,鈥 says Dr. Scott Cowley, assistant professor of marketing.
Recognizing the power of influencer marketing as a way of tapping into target markets, Miller Auditorium staff looked to the college of business for help encouraging 蜜桃社区 students to attend the recent showing of The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running musical on Broadway. That help came from Dr. Scott Cowley, assistant professor of marketing, and a savvy group of digital marketing students.
The result: a unique collaboration among the production company, Miller and Haworth College of Business digital marketing students, who attended the opening performances, sharing their experiences and information about the show through their social media stories. Their goal was to encourage student attendance at the show and to spread awareness of Miller鈥檚 discounts on tickets for students鈥攁nd the results were impressive.
鈥淭his campaign was successful from multiple angles,鈥 says Dr. Scott Cowley, assistant professor of 蜜桃社区鈥檚 digital marketing and eCommerce major. 鈥淭he Instagram engagement rates and story completion rates were much higher than the benchmarks reported by professional influencers with similar audience sizes.鈥
The digital marketing students reached thousands of people through creative and engaging content and learned about multiple reports of people who went to the show after seeing one of the social media posts.
鈥淐onsidering our business outcomes, our learnings about influencer strategy and the opportunity we were given to experience such a high-quality production, I think everybody was a winner here,鈥 adds Cowley.
The exact content of the social posts was up to the students, as long as they creatively aligned with the campaign's desired audience, platform, and message, and captured the appropriate social media performance analytics.
Campaign Results
Instagram Posts
- Potential reach: 12,529
- Engagement rate (likes/comments): 14.62%
Instagram Stories
- Total viewers: 4,679
- Average story completion rate: 83.96%
Website Traffic
- Miller website visits from student Instagram accounts: 148
Part of the reason this partnership was so great is that we found a way to help the show and Miller get the message to all 蜜桃社区 students, plus a way for our business students to gain a unique marketing experience,鈥 says Cowley.
鈥溍厶疑缜 students have a wonderful benefit鈥攖hanks to the Office of the President鈥攚here they receive 50% off tickets to most of our season events at Miller, yet many don鈥檛 know about this discount,鈥 says Bethany Gauthier, associate marketing director for Miller Auditorium. 鈥淲orking with students in Dr. Cowley鈥檚 advanced digital marketing class was a way to more directly reach 蜜桃社区 students.鈥
Student influencers
Students taking part in the collaboration say the assignment challenged them to view social media from the influencers鈥 perspective.
鈥淢y greatest take away from this assignment would be the impact potential of social media influencing,鈥 says Brooke Wester, a senior majoring in advertising and promotion. 鈥淕oing into this project, I wasn't sure how successful my classmates and I would be. However, we all had a lot of success, and this was really a great way to market to people.鈥
鈥淧osting sponsored content on my page was something very new and slightly uncomfortable for me,鈥 says Taylor Graham, a senior majoring in advertising and promotion. 鈥淒r. Cowley pushed us outside our comfort zones to help us grow as individuals and professionals!鈥
鈥淚 was most successful with engaging my viewers,鈥 says Jeffrey Huang, digital marketing and eCommerce senior. 鈥淕etting them to click on the link in my bio with a call-to-action in my story as well as my static post worked well for me.鈥
鈥淭he most difficult aspect of this project was creating stories that seemed natural to my existing content but also intriguing to my followers to look into the Miller Auditorium event,鈥 says Ashton Burke, a junior majoring in marketing.
The results of the project are listed at the above, but the pictures shown below tell an even bigger story.
Sampling of Project Posts
Many of the posts鈥攊ncluding these from students and Professor Cowley鈥攚ere shared by Miller Auditorium and Sweetwater Donuts.