Thibaut's Case Study: Democrats Abroad Viral Video Campaign

Disclaimer: This is my personal blog. I don't write on behalf of Democrats Abroad. This blog post is not paid for by my employer.

Maybe you wondered what I was doing now that I'm a freelance social media consultant. Well here is something I'm allowed to talk about : the Democrats Abroad viral video campaign.

The client: 

Democrats Abroad is an official Democratic Party organization dedicated to reaching the millions of americans living oversea. I'm working with the Chairman of Multimedia Group as well as the Video Producer, based in Geneva and Paris respectively.

 

The pitch: 

Democrats Abroad wanted to deliver a strong message through a web video for their "Vote From Abroad" campaign this summer, based on the Vote From Abroad website. 

Our target: the millions of americans living abroad.

My Strategy in 3 points :

1. Buid Attention. We want to create genuine interest in the campaign. Because of its high values (vote participation, worldwide responsibility...) it has the power to reach people easily. The message is loud and clear. Despite this, so few americans know that it is possible to  vote from abroad that the message is also new to most of them. We want to spread the word before the video is online, to gain attention, share the excitation, build attention.
2. Use the Community. The internet is a giant zero. "It puts everybody zero distance from everybody and everything else." So, there is no point in focusing on americans abroad. Instead, let's reach everyone genuinely interested, including national politics blogs. The real target is the whole internet, not only oversea workers blogosphere. Every democrat in the US should see the video in order to spread it to their own social network, including people abroad. 
3. Kick-Start. Let's get maximum views of the video on the very first day of the campaign, no need to wait, let's concentrate forces on the first day of the campaign. A few weeks before the Democratic Convention gives us enough media space and attention.

How to achieve that ? 

• The Social Media Release blog: The Vote From Abroad Campaign Blog is the gate to all the communication about the campaign. It will feature bullet points, embeddable content, easy repost tools...
  
• The Community Campaign with help from the Democrats Abroad Blog Teams. They will contact a list of an extended number of bloggers, professional or not, famous and not-so-famous, building a conversation with them, involving them in the community campaign, I would like to achieve person-to -person conversation instead of top-down communication.

What is my involvement level as a consultant ? 

• Strategic Presentation
  
• Video Production Overview (including shooting and editing days)
  
• Behind the Scenes Photo+Videos Production
  
• Community Campaign Orientation
  
• Social Media Release Blog set-up
  
• Official Blogging Guidance
  
• General Strategic Consulting

Thibaut Thomas is a Generation Y professionnal, inventing a new job about social media, sociology, consultancy in the digital era. You can reach him now by email, twitter or linkedin.