Sony Pictures tapped Mammoth to copywrite social editorial content, manage fan communities, and support studio initiatives like Channing Tatum’s “Sweet Nothings” video series. We’re proud to have worked with Sony on this campaign, and would like to share five secrets to our shared social media success.

1. Establishing A Voice

96% of The Vow’s Facebook & Twitter communities are female, with females aged 13-24 comprising 71% of Facebook Likes. Because young females are among the savviest social media users, establishing an authentic voice was imperative.

We were forward in asking fans to “LIKE” and “SHARE” our content if they felt a personal connection with it. We used emoticons (<3) and digital acronyms like “OMG” and “LOL” in official posts. And lastly, we played up the obvious selling points – Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams.

2. Escalating Engagement

By gradually escalating post frequency over a four month campaign, we were able to engage early adaptors, prevent long-term saturation, generate organic growth, and conserve valuable content for the home-stretch.

We began in November with 3 posts per week, mostly stills and conversation starters of our own devising. By February, we had increased to three daily posts, spreading Facebook real estate over original content, press breaks, exclusive media, and calls-to-action. As a result, 41% of Facebook growth during release week was attributed to the viral spread of page content.

On Twitter, we tweeted 15-20 times per day during release week, with the ensuing buzz establishing The Vow as frequent trending topic. On release day, The Vow was a trending topic nationally, as well as in 31 individual US markets.

3. Activating Evangelizers

We were active in asking fans to “LIKE,” “SHARE,” and “RETWEET” content that they felt a personal connection with. On Facebook, 7 out of the 10 most “liked” posts included a call-to-action. Similarly 60% of the most “shared” posts asked fans to do so.

On Twitter, we similarly sought help from fans, and it paid dividends. In posts where we asked fans to make The Vow a trending topic, we saw 1,635 total retweets, with an average of 182 retweets per post.

4. Real-Time Analysis

For The Vow, we crunched the data of individual posts & tactics to discover the keys to maximizing engagement. For instance, we determined that the best engagement rates for this campaign occurred just after 3:30 pm EST, so we scheduled the highest-value content to be executed around that time.

On Twitter, we monitored real-time user sentiment about The Vow to predict what film content was about to go viral, and when. This proved crucial, as it helped us strategically apply resources based on our fans’ behavior.

5. Sister Community Outreach

Channing Tatum provided an opportunity to connect The Vow with some established & passionate fan communities, most notably the 5.5 million Facebook fans of Sony’s Dear John. Collaborating with the studio’s internal marketing team, we devised a social editorial strategy that posted & framed The Vow content on the Dear John Facebook wall in a natural, organic way.

By offering up the film as a relevant interest, instead of unsolicited spam, we effectively drew those fans into The Vow conversation, expanded the community, and increased our viral reach.

However despite this high level of social media adoption, the president had not, until now, joined Foursquare. But as of yesterday, the president will alert a quickly amassed 21922 followers where he is via ‘tips.’ In addition to subscribing to the president’s ‘tips,’ users can check in at presidential events, such as speeches or town hall meetings. Seems smart to me.

That said, I wonder if the president is feeling some chagrin. He is neither mayor of The White House, nor The Oval Office. Does this bring up succession issues?

For the record Chris C of Boulder, CO (?!) is mayor of The Oval Office with only 40 check-ins. Point of Order: Mr. President, you need to get on that.

Next to an email from my cousin appeared this ad, where Gmail’s text ads used to be alone.

Click on it and the ad opens in your email with options to “Dismiss,” “Forward,” or “Save to Inbox.”

The benefits of this are obvious. While I might not be interested in One Day, proposition me with I don’t know — the next Lore Segal novel or Myth of the American Sleepover, which I do have plans to read or watch, and I might just pass it along.

On a side note, Google sure knows me. Eek. I read in the FT that they’re testing this ad on a limited number of users. Lo and behold, I receive one, book gobbler and early adopter that I am.

These ad units are clean, attractive and noticeable without being obtrusive. In fact, they’re even a bit nicer than Google’s text ads, which always seemed like unwelcome word scrapple to me. In short, they make perfect sense. What took them so long?

Much has been made of this battle of the behemoths, Google v. Facebook. (I’m sure we all recall the backfire when Facebook hired a PR firm to discredit Google on the basis of their privacy policies?) It’s a war for ad dollars, people. Google is armed with search. Facebook with social.

It’s all very dramatic isn’t it? …A sort of neither-can-live-while-the-other-survives scenario.
Facebook killed MySpace.
MySpace killed Friendster.
But Google v. Facebook is a different story. Both have billions of dollars, some of the top tech talent in the world, and established, overlapping audiences.

So who will win?

Well, we’re now two weeks into Google+, and it appears like the service may be in for an uphill battle. Only twenty or so status updates have been posted from my circles, mostly from the same people. It’s true that Google+ has the advantage of accounts centralization and the neat Circles feature, but Facebook has my habits, my friends and 403 of my photos over the past four years. Over the weekend, I thought on uploading a photo from my iPhone to Google+– just as I do with Facebook. Not just yet, it seems.

Also, the do-it-all model makes some people uncomfortable because, frankly, that’s a lot of trust to instill in Google. There is certainly a counter-argument for centralization, but there are advantages to using different brands and services. In a nutshell: can Google really do it all, and do it all really well?

Still, I’m not placing any bets just yet. It’s possible that Google will build a better product that will gain steam as the service expands. In fact, it’s more than possible. Like many people, I’m already logged into the Google platform every day, both in the office and at home.

For the time being though, Mark Zuckerberg seems to hold the cards– or at least all the friends.

From now until the new year, we will share some of our favorite campaigns with you along with some highlights of what made them so successful. Drum roll please…

Project: THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE

Client: IFC Films
Verticals: Digital PR and Social Media
Highlights: In order to make the film feel fresh and subversive while courting mainstream acceptance, we created a Horror Site Screening Tour. Mammoth worked with 7 prominent horror and fanboy sites to coordinate linked regional sponsored screenings in 14 cities on the day of release. The tour was a tremendous success, garnering packed houses and positive buzz. We heightened awareness for the film by creating an engaging Facebook page with a striking custom poster for the screening tour, along with information about show times and on demand schedules. Human Centipede has been IFC’s most successful Video On Demand to date, and is one of the studio’s biggest hits of all time.

Project: LET ME IN

Client: Overture Films
Verticals: Digital PR and Social Media
Highlights: To shift 
the conversation from backlash against an “unnecessary” remake and transform it to anticipation and optimism, we built out the official Facebook destination with captivating conversation starters. Our management and organic outreach helped gain over 140,000 likes, and together with our PR, completely altered the dialogue. To create a more in-depth experience, we built several custom Facebook tabs, including one that displayed a visually stunning countdown clock.

Project: THE MAGNIFICENT 12

Client: HarperCollins
Verticals: Website and Digital PR
Highlights: To allow tweens to fully immerse themselves in the world of the book, we built a site featuring an avatar creator that allows users to customize every aspect 
of their appearance. The avatars are then used to play games 
related to the book’s characters and locations. A visually stunning 3D leader board displays the 
avatars with the most points and allows users to view 
each others’ profiles. To create awareness for the book and site, our digital PR team placed exclusives with Yahoo! Kids and Kids World. We also worked to secure reviews and giveaways on over 40 sites.

Facebook’s old guidelines effectively eliminated promotional opportunities for smaller campaigns, as the required media spend wasn’t feasible within a limited budget. As an alternative, Mammoth often recommended Twitter as a hosting platform. While Twitter is a more than serviceable tool for this purpose, it doesn’t boast the same traffic–or development opportunities–as Facebook. The news that Facebook is now providing a free and instantaneous platform to host contests & giveaways might not change much for top-tier campaigns, but it is an absolute boon for more modest ones.

If you were wandering around midtown Manhattan this week, you may have spotted several particularly enviable cars that we gussied up to look like NYC taxis. Featured were a Maserati, a Ferrari and a Bentley to name a few. While lining up for a ride in one of the spectacular cars, the passengers were presented with iPads featuring the app we created. The app gave passengers a preview of the “gearhead” hosts and showed them some sneak peeks of the show.

The experience has not only caused a scene on the street, it’s making a splash in the media, including The New York Times and The Today Show.

To promote the Blu-ray & DVD release of Eat Pray Love, Mammoth had to conceive a strategy worthy of a film with a message that is nearly sacred to its ardent fan base.  We believe we have met this challenge with an original Facebook application called Word Cloud.  This app, which lives on a custom Facebook tab, invites users to enter the word that best describes their philosophy.  When a word is submitted, users are invited to share it on Facebook and Twitter, and are then shown their word inserted on highlighted tile within the cloud grid. Users are allowed to submit and share as many words as they like, and can click on previously submitted words to see how many other users chose them as their own.

With this app, we are utilizing a set of complex data and displaying it with fluid elegance. The design aggregates, selects, and displays thousands of individual words in a whimsical, unpredictable way. The functionality connects with the spirit of the film so well, that Sony Pictures Home has made Word Cloud a cornerstone of their marketing campaign, supporting it with both paid media and internal promotion.

But like any good plague, spammers mutate to fit their environment. Instead of posting directly to page walls, they have begun to sneak in their messaging as comments on posts made by the page, or made by fans of the page. Once again, admins must revert to patrolling their pages for unwanted and dangerous links. At Mammoth, we always monitor our pages to ensure that fans are seeing only what they want to see, and clicking safe and relevant links.

The challenge of how to translate the enormous amount of state-of-the-art footage into a dynamic print campaign was a tall one. We were also asked to find a unique way to brand the campaign and make it instantly recognizable as Nat Geo-specific. Our solution was to bring the iconic yellow border into the campaign in a way that had never been done before. We paired our version of the famous border with carefully selected, stunning images that reflect the energy of these Great Migrations.

Six months of labor and love yielded three individual pieces of key art, the billboard, the calendar, the book jacket and the DVD shells.

Tune in on Sunday, November 7th to see the global television event that we are so proud to be affiliated with.