Does Twitter work?

Heather Platisha, account executive extraordinaire, at your service!

The folks here at LCI have contemplated, discussed and plotted the many ways to use Twitter to effectively spread the word. So it has been exciting to see the results of a real Twitter campaign in action.

Our client, the American Craft Council (the Council), recently hosted the annual American Craft Council Show in San Francisco at Fort Mason Center. LCI was hired to oversee an integrated public relations campaign around the show. Events are always fun to pitch to the media, aren’t they? During any given weekend here in San Francisco, there could be a hundred different events, so we were challenged to find different ways to spread the word. That’s where Twitter came in handy.

When working with the Council to come up with unique ways to promote the show, the team immediately brought up Twitter.  From there, the Council set up an account and periodically posted updates about the show and other crafty subjects. This helped build their followers list and position them as the leader in all things craft. It didn’t stop there, though.

The next step was to get others to ‘tweet’ about the Council, too. So, how did that happen? Well, the team simply asked. We found out that many of the exhibiting artists had Twitter accounts. They were already tweeting about the upcoming show, which led their followers to ‘retweet’ about the show.

Our team proactively researched and identified close to a dozen DIY influencers and local store owners. We reached out to these individuals to encourage them to write about the upcoming show in their blogs and to tweet the posts, too. We successfully secured additional blog coverage due to our outreach, as well as additional tweets and retweets.

LCI also worked with Faythe Levine, filmmaker and author of “Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft and Design,” to organize a screening of her film at the show. Faythe included The Council’s show in her own blog, which has a large readership of people that also have Twitter handles. Her coverage led to her readers tweeting about the screening and the show, which in turn led to dozens of retweets.

Traditional media outreach is, and will always be one of the best ways to reach audiences. Twitter, however, offers an additional communication tool with which we can reach new audiences. We found that many members of the media have Twitter handles, too. For example, our contact at San Francisco Magazine let us know that the online ‘It List’ (on which the show was slated to appear) was cancelled at the last minute, but she agreed that she would tweet about the show instead!

When speaking to the artists on the showroom floor on both Friday and Saturday, I could tell that word had traveled. People who hadn’t been to the show before were coming and buying, and the artists were thrilled!  Plus, the show had posted a jump in attendance for the first time in two years!

Here’s a thought. When talking to reporters and bloggers, even if they can’t write about something, it might be helpful to ask if they could at least Tweet about the topic or event. The worst they can say is no, but how will you know if you don’t ask? Give it a try! We did and it worked!

Buzzworthy:

*Don’t forget to follow Landis Communications on Twitter ‘LandisComm

* Can’t go to Burning Man? Participate remotely: http://laughingsquid.com/how-to-experience-burning-man-2009-remotely/

* Learn more about LCI’s neighborhood: http://polksheet.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/succulent-style-for-dummies/

* My favorite ACC artist: www.takemehomeware.com