IBM’S VIRTUAL FORBIDDEN CITYIBM VFC Social Media Campaign Metrics

Introduction

Background

• Live: 10th October 2008• IBM worked with Palace Museum

officials to build a virtual replica of China’s Forbidden City, including its former palace grounds.

• The Forbidden City: Beyond Space & Time is a 3-D replica built using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

• www.beyondspaceandtime.org

Campaign

• Host 2 seminars INSIDE the Virtual Forbidden City providing an insider’s view of how the virtual world was built and the technology powering it

Objectives• Identify new IT / SOA influencer audiences• Generate leads for SOA using purely social media / online

channels• Establish ‘non traditional’ IBM leads - we’re talking t-shirt

wearing software analysts, not ‘suits’

Measurement & metrics

From the outset...

Execution

100% online / social media• Microsite development• Influencer identification and

realtime blog monitoring• Blogger engagement and Social

Media News Release• Twitter• Promotional resources via

YouTube, Flickr• Social network outreach

(LinkedIn, Facebook)• Internal marketing – harnessing

massive IBM community

Traffic generated from:

Untagged promotion 1174

Twitter 377

Flickr 24

Facebook 23

YouTube 17

VRM newsletter 12

LinkedIn 7

Microsite

Unique visitors

Objective 2000 visitors

Total (excl IBMers) 3752 visitors

Total (inc IBMers) 4284 visitors

Blogger engagement / comment seeding

• Blog coverage – 21• Bloggers engaged - 15• Blog comments – 10• Comments seeded – 38

Twitter

Twitter Stats

Twitter Grader 94/100

Followers 367

Following 598

@ replies 76

Re-tweets 81

YouTube

Video Views

How SOA was Used to Build the Virtual Forbidden City 212

How the VFC Demonstrates the Value of SOA in Business 75

How to Join IBM's Exclusive Virtual Worlds SOA Tour 126

SOA and IBM's Virtual Forbidden City 308

721

Flickr

• IBMVFC views – 227 • Images used – 4 blog posts

Lead generation

What? Target ActualRegistrations 80 172

Number of Attendees 30 21

Lessons learned

• Timescales, sign off• Clear goals and objectives• Counts were manual

– Not 100% accurate– Always changing

• Direct access to site stats• Getting people involved• Metrics in qualitative

context• Tools for measuring

THANK YOU!Questions?

The Team

Jordan Stone, Text 100• @jordanstone

Andy Keetch, C&M• @special_noodles

Rowan Stanfield, C&M• @rowstar