The Humble Beginnings and Social Media Evolution

The Harry Potter series has come a long way since the release of the first offering, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone back in 2001. Ten years later, a lot has changed, and we’re not just talking about how each film in the series proved to be darker than the previous one. While the initial films generated significant buzz offline, it was the release of the ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ that set various social networking sites abuzz with excitement and activity. Although the earlier movie, boasting +325,000 Facebook fans prior to its release in 2009, was termed as a social media blockbuster, the latest and the last in the series ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2′, has been nothing short of a sensation, both online as well as offline. Here’s a glimpse at the massive promotional push and the exponential social media surge the finale witnessed just ahead of its release on 15th July 2011:

• Warner Bros’ aim was to reach out the millions of Harry Potter fans; and they did just that by launching a series of social media campaigns in addition to official site, HarryPotter.com.
• The studio, which has had a solid Facebook presence for the series, further increased engagement with fans and launched new apps for the latest movie. The official Facebook page gained approximately 100,000 new fans per day in the week before its London premiere on July 7th 2011.
• Anticipating the excitement online, especially as the film got closer to its release, Warner Bros also created local Facebook fan pages for a variety of different countries and languages.
• The social media experts managing the @HarryPotterFilm Twitter account were highly proactive, engaging with users, sharing links, media articles and posting photos.
• Photos from the New York premiere of the Deathly Hallows were live-tweeted using TwitPic.
• Leaving no stone unturned for the grand finale, the Harry Potter franchise launched an assortment of trailer uploads and fan-made spoofs; additionally, the Harry Potter YouTube channel was used as a repository for official clips, TV spots and interviews.
• The YouTube page also provided fans with access to real-time updates from Facebook and Twitter.
• One of the major factors that resulted in an increase in fan base was the sale of tickets online via social media channels.
• Foursquare, the location-based social network, teamed up with EA games for a promotion where users were offered exclusive Deathly Hallows badges on checking in to the service when they went see the movie.
• Adding to the excitement was the mushrooming of fan sites such as The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet that featured updated information, contests and promotions to keep fans engaged.
• The announcement of the Pottermore website by author J K Rowling increased the hype; the website will open to select audience at the end of July and to the public in October this year.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: The Social Media Buzz

Research conducted by the Brand Monitor team at Position², for the time period between 19th June and 19th July 2011, shows that:

Conversation Volumes and Sentiment Analysis

• The conversation volumes gradually started to rise as the date launch got closer. As expected, the volumes spiked to a whopping 61,438 on 15th July 2011, when the finale hit the big screens for the first time.



• Of the total posts (780,199), Twitter registered the highest share of volume at 26%, with discussion forums and Facebook occupying the next slot (at 23% each), followed by blogs at 22%.



• Sentiment analysis leans heavily towards neutral at 77% (mostly links to the trailer).
• 18% of the conversations were positive in tonality (included posts describing the series as part of a ‘magical childhood’).
• The negative tonality, at 5%, comprised of fans expressing dismay over the Harry Potter series coming to an end. Some were upset over the death of key characters in the final battle against Lord Voldemort.

Demographics

• The eighth and final installment of the Harry Potter series was talked about the most in the USA, which accounted for 73% of the total conversations.



• This was followed by the UK at 11% (interestingly the key characters in the movie as well as the author are British) and Australia at 5%.
• While 57% of the posts and discussions were by the female population, men accounted for 43% of the conversations.



• Although not completely unexpected, the 20-35 age bracket expressed the maximum excitement and talked about the film the most.
• Contrary to general expectations, the <20 group accounted for 26% of the social media buzz. This could be because some parents felt that certain parts of the movie were too violent for kids.
• At a negligible 3%, the +65 age group was generally unconcerned about the movie.

Summary

The social media hype surrounding ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2′ shows how the art of film promotion has evolved over the years. Going back just five years, promotional activity for movies was restricted to traditional methods; however, the growing use of social media by movie buffs has certainly changed that. Almost every movie now has a Facebook page and a Twitter account; and the Harry Potter series is no exception. From using social media to build awareness to selling tickets online, Warner Bros seem to have thought of it all. Besides sending out the usual press releases and launching special websites where fans could get the latest scoop, the studio took to social networking sites to debut the latest trailers; a strategy that has paid off handsomely.

Heavy promotional activities for the final part of the Harry Potter series not only ensured that networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter received more than their fair share of buzz, but also led to the launch of several fans sites to satisfy the Potter-fever across the web. While it is natural for the hype to taper down gradually, we are eager to see how the launch of Rowling’s website Pottermore impacts social media. Can this be seen as the author’s effort to keep fans’ interest in Harry Potter alive, even as the series comes to an end? As of now, all we can say is that what started off as a fantasy movie for children has grown into something that is enjoyed, discussed and ‘liked’ by young adults online; and we have every reason to believe that social media is a major cause for this.

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Then and Now

Go back a few years in time and you would find cricket buffs either with their eyes glued to the television or their ears stuck to the radio during a tournament. The 2011 World Cup, however, witnessed a spurt of activity in the social media space. It was not only Facebook and Twitter that registered heavy cricket commentary, but small players like soch.la and simplycricket.net also saw fans discussing the match with gusto. Yahoo, in partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), launched iccevents.yahoo.com, the official site to ICC World Cup 2011. The content on the Yahoo site included the ‘commontweeter’, where a consolidated view of Twitter updates from fans and top cricketers across the world was added.

The Cricket World Cup was found to dominate nearly all social media discussions in cricket playing nations. Anticipating this, official media sponsors and advertisers entered social media conversations and interacted with fans to ensure that their respective brands stood out in the digital space. For instance, Reebok launched a three-pronged digital marketing activity for the event. The company announced plans to increase the share of digital marketing in its overall marketing budget in 2011, from 5% in 2010, to 30% this year.

Data compiled by Google Trends has revealed that the average worldwide web traffic of the World Cup increased significantly over the years. With regard to the search volume index, the difference was marginal; however, the news reference volume saw an large increase for the 2011 World Cup.

Conversation Volume and Sentiment on Social Media

According to research conducted by Position², for the time period between 19th January 2011 and 2nd April 2011, the team that registered the largest conversation volume on social media platforms was India (199,049), closely followed by Pakistan (110,854) and then England (107,456), making them the three most popular teams that were discussed. Further team comparisons show that the volumes were lowest for Netherlands at 26,178.

Further analysis for the Cricket World Cup 2011, by the Brand Monitor™ team shows that the conversational tone on blogs largely remained positive. After analyzing the discussions, the data shows that:

• Conversations with positive tonality were registered at 50%. (Fans cheering their teams on)
• 10% of the people voiced negative opinions (Complaints about players, infrastructure, team strategy)
• 40% chose to remain neutral

Data populated by Brand Monitor™ also revealed that cricket fans mostly chose Twitter to focus their discussions, exchange trivia etc. There was also significant spike in blog conversations, discussions on various forums and news in general on 2nd April 2010, during the finals. Volumes (Twitter, Blogs, News, Forums) were recorded at a whopping 32,639 when India and Sri Lanka played the finals. The semi-finals between India and Pakistan recorded the 2nd highest (20,274) in terms of conversation volumes registered.

Conclusion

Social media buzz during the World Cup was largely centered on Twitter, closely followed by various blogs and forums. Conversations taking place in real time immensely added to volume, especially on Twitter. Additionally, top cricketers from across the world were engaging in conversations with fans.

Compared to the last Cricket World Cup in 2007, activity in the social media space went up by leaps and bounds during the 2011 World Cup. The biggest reason for this is the growth of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter that function as a stage for cricket fans and players to exchange views.

With the growth of smaller social media platform players in this space and with the convenience provided by the bigger players such as Facebook and Twitter, cricket fans are increasingly hooked to their computer screens or mobile phones, while not altogether shunning traditional media.

What the sponsors of such sporting events need to realize is that social media platforms are the next big thing. Yahoo, the official sponsor of the event, rightly tapped Twitter to launch the ‘commontweeter’ site, a commendable move. Meanwhile, other media sponsors and advertisers changed their marketing strategies for the event; instead of solely depending on traditional media, they have started to include social media as part of their marketing plan.

What remains to be seen is how this new strategy will unfold in the years to come, but we are quite sure next World Cup in 2015 will see a further exponential growth in social media conversations.

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By Rajiv Parikh, CEO, Position²

Thanks to the group that filled our Ask-the-Experts Roundtable session at DMA 2010. Given the placement of the sessions, I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t get to share our new presentation and new Social Media ROI analysis for addressing unresolved issues and engaging to drive new leads. Instead, we had a great session with companies from around the world. While much of the examples in my deck were B2C, many of the questions were B2B. I was happy to share our experiences and learn from the group. If anyone is interested in a copy of our deck, please write to us.

The DMA 2010 conference has evolved from discussing the latest in database marketing techniques to a much more holistic event that this year was heavily weighted towards social media. There were many beginners and some experts. I went to a few sessions and took away some interesting tidbits.

The best session was the Social Media Face-Off moderated by Sean Muzzy with industry luminaries like Brian Solis, Vivek Sodera and David Berkowitz.

They discussed the need to research first before you get involved and to budget more senior resources than the social media intern. This is your company’s brand presence and should not be left to the whims of someone without real experience.

I liked Solis’ comment about the need for the brand to exude a higher purpose.

“You need to see the brand in a more aspirational sense than pure features and function – think Apple and Disney.” – Brian Solis

Then there’s the reality that Michael Friedman expressed about needing to drive new sales.

“Giving freebies to influencers is not enough. It has to lead to real growth. Hence the need to model the return on investment. When you are a restaurant owner, image is one thing, but it better fill the seats.“
- Michael Friedman

Of course, Solis won the “battle” of the day. It’s partly because he’s steeped in the subject. He also gave away a copy of Engage. That never hurts

Given our experience in social media area, there is a way to map conversations in a market to a particular capability like customer services, sales opportunity, or competitive intelligence. The difference is the magnification aspect and permanence of conversation. What you say stays. We are big believers of relating this to customer lifetime value because it wraps acquisition costs, customer services and retention marketing to profitability over time. If you are interested in discussing this more, please write to us.

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The Internet was abuzz with the launch of Apple’s iPad. While the world was busy reacting to the iPad, our team set out monitoring social networks to track iPad buzz. We tracked activity from January 27 through February 28. The results are here to see!

Priced modestly at $499 for the 16GB base version, the iPad packs in quite a punch. Compared to e-readers, this sleek unit has a stunning screen, wireless broadband connectivity, a touchscreen and the ability to run over 100,000 iPhone apps. However, the iPad has received mixed reactions online. Critics have written about missing features like a camera, flash and the fact that it cannot multitask. You cannot listen to your favorite Pandora station while writing an email. At the same time, with winners like the iPod, iPhone and iMac, it’s hard to count Apple out.

Below is a summary of the tracking study.

Number Of Mentions – Apple iPad

Among social networks, there was an explosion of Tweets with over 5.2 million posts. There were 70,796 news articles, 199,979 forum posts and 246,886 blog entries. Rarely would you see so many articles about a product launch, even an Apple one.

Overall Popularity



After a burst of posts on January 27, iPad social media mentions had its normal drop in popularity. What is more interesting is how there is a steady stream of posts even over a month afterwards. There are still around 50,000 mentions per day for a product that has not shipped or advertised on TV. That is, until the Oscars on March 7th. The ad is worth watching.

Sentiment Analysis Of Blogs

In the blogosphere,

• The overall sentiment was split into neutral at 47%, positive at 41% and negative at 12%.
• After an initial burst of positive sentiment, it turned more negative as critics commented on missing features.
• Towards the end of February, positive sentiment has been rising as negative sentiment is dropping. More people are making decisions about the device. It will be interesting to observe sentiment once advertising picks up.
• Among countries, U.S. blogs commented most about the iPad followed by U.K. and Germany.

Features

• It’s a light-weight device with a 9.7 inch display
• iPad’s multi-touch screen makes gaming and navigation an experience like no other
• The new iBook app transforms the iPad into a digital reader
• For a modestly priced gadget, the iPad has a long battery life of 10 hours
• The app store with 140,000 apps make the iPad a real steal

The Verdict – Lines At The Apple Store?

With lines at the store for upgrades of the iPhone, the answer is… definitely. The Apple iPad launch demonstrates the power of consistently strong marketing and product development. Loyal and vocal followers drive the mix as well. The initial buzz has translated to consistent mentions over a 30 day period. Sentiment has varied with time because experts were expecting more features and functionality than what was announced. At the same time, positive sentiment has risen consistently as people are digesting a new product category distinct from the Kindle or Tablet PC. The power of Apple’s positive brand equity is clear when news stories are reporting on TV ads released during the Oscars. It’s clear that Steve Job’s company is a master at marketing. While we do not know whether the iPad will be a high-flyer like the iPhone or a relative dud like Apple TV, we’ll continue to track the buzz.

Methodology: We compiled results from Sysomos as well as the Google AdWords keywords tool, to arrive at a keywords set for the Apple iPad.

Keywords: “Apple iPad”, “iPad”

Contributed by Sanjeev Dhanaraj, Social Media Marketing, Position²

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