FIRSTBASE
EQUINIX:
HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO
ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES
EQUINIX:
HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO
ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES
Category number:
7
Category name:
Best use of social media
Programme/initiative name:
Equinix – Harnessing social media to engage C-level audiences
Agency:
First Base
Brand or client:
Equinix
URL:
http://www.equinix.co.uk/
Summary:
Global interconnection and data centre company Equinix operates in a crowded marketplace where
awareness and understanding within the C-level community of its unique proposition are critical to
securing large enterprise deals.
First Base, the social media agency of record, was commissioned to help maximise Equinix’s presence at
the Gartner ITxpo event in October 2014, where CIOs and senior IT executives converge to learn about
transformative business strategies.
A social media campaign combining socially optimised content with an integrated organic and paid social
media programme was designed to maximise online reach for the Equinix brand, drive engagement and
clickthrough traffic to a ‘book a meeting’ event landing page.
The social campaign increased visitor traffic to Equinix’s website by almost 50% during the event, with
Twitter and LinkedIn activity driving in excess of 4,000 URL click-throughs to Equinix branded content.
Operating before, during and after the Gartner event, the social campaign delivered 331,000 page
impressions from the target prospect audience, engagement on LinkedIn and Twitter averaged 4.5%
and the activity generated 500 visits to the ‘book a meeting’ landing page.
www.hitfirstbase.com tel: 020 3542 6644 | email: [email protected]
EQUINIX:
HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO
ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES
About the client company
Equinix is a global interconnection and data centre company with customers in 33 markets
across five continents. Founded in 1998, today it operates more than 100 data centres
worldwide interconnecting people, locations, clouds and data.
Strategy
Primarily, Equinix needed to increase its penetration in the already highly saturated data
centre market. This demanded a new marketing approach that could prove its unique value
and relevance. A social media campaign was the ideal choice to engage prospects, customers
and stakeholders and firmly position Equinix as ‘a catalyst for service expansion and revenue
growth’ as well as a provider that ‘accelerates business performance’.
Objectives of the campaign
The campaign aligned the Equinix brand with the theme running through Gartner ITxpo: how
a powerful convergence of forces (mobile, social, cloud and information) is reshaping how
business gets done now and in the future. The wider goals were to increase Equinix’s brand
exposure, drive more traffic to its website, and generate new leads.
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For First Base, this meant ensuring Equinix was reaching the right demographic, at the right
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that Equinix’s branded social media channels were immature, each with a comparatively
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HOW THE EVENT UNFOLDED THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
See the top trends, topics and influencers from this year’s
European ITxpo event as told through social media users.
HUGE SOCIAL COMMUNITY INVOLVED
4,000+ people attend in person, but with a social reach of over 9 million – join the community.
www.hitfirstbase.com tel: 020 3542 6644 | email: [email protected]
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EQUINIX:
HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO
ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES
Media, channels or techniques used
Organic social calendar:
3 months of Twitter and LinkedIn posts - as well as adhoc posts based on updates from Equinix team
members and also a commissioned blogger attending the event. All posts for regional countries were
translated into the regional language – NL, FR, DE.
3x Twitter posts per day; 1-2x LinkedIn posts per day for the whole campaign. Posts were also crafted
and sent out regularly in internal emails, ‘spread the word’ style, to Equinix advocates.
Research and audience acquisition:
Follower acquisition of key researchers and analysts and also journalists and Gartner spokespeople.
Daily hashtag research and testing for trends and popularity. Daily research into trending topics and
most active users utilising the event hashtag – this was used in daily round up posts and was also sent
to Equinix advocates to encourage them to get involved with the conversation.
Responsive social listening:
Monitoring general Gartner feeds for trending topics relevant to Equinix and ensuring it became part
of the conversation. With the use of Spundge, First Base published strong imagery in real-time, accompanied by organic posts, as well as paid-for posts promoting the Equinix sign-up landing page.
Socially optimised content:
- Twitter Poll – created with a view to utilise the findings from the poll for informed future content
such as blogs, infographics etc. Used to establish Equinix as a thought leader, market commentator
and insight provider. Promoted via organic and paid media. Poll questions were related to why users
are using the cloud, if at all and their thoughts on the future use of the cloud.
- Infographics, pre and post event – used to to tell the social story of the Gartner event.
- Research went into the most socially engaged users, hot topics, hashtags, users and themes to
come out of the event. Promoted via organic and paid media.
Paid Media:
Twitter and LinkedIn paid posts were crafted based on best performing organic posts and most popular hashtags e.g AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Two versions of every post were created, these were A/B tested with images, hashtags, CTA and
copy. Any post which dropped below 1% CTR was immediately amended or taken down. Each post
was targeted to specific countries.
www.hitfirstbase.com tel: 020 3542 6644 | email: [email protected]
EQUINIX:
HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO
ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES
Media, channels or techniques used (...Cont’)
Advocate guidance:
First Base provided Equinix advocates with social guidelines and an activation toolkit to use
their personal handles and profiles to share Equinix content. We provided a number of optimised social posts, and ‘spread the word’ email communications for Equinix teams to cut and
paste directly.
Timescales of the campaign
Recognising the importance of engaging CIOs early, as well as during the event itself, First
Base developed a research phase within its campaign execution. This empowered us with a
deeper insight into Equinix’s market, prospects and key influencers.
First Base employed social listening techniques three months prior to the event in order to
build a body of knowledge from which to position Equinix as a credible and valued brand
within the Gartner sphere. This included:
• Daily monitoring and recording of Twitter conversations
• Tracking trending topics, key influencers and hashtags using Twitter stream creation
• Monitoring of Gartner LinkedIn group conversations
The key findings were also passed to Equinix’s team and other advocates, with actionable
advice on how to engage the C-Suite more effectively.
In tandem with the research phase of the campaign, First Base mapped the buyer journey for
users across 12 channels and six countries. A social calendar was then developed for LinkedIn
and Twitter, which plotted specific messaging and CTAs, outlining the precise moments for
publication in the run up to ITxpo.
Post event, First Base and Equinix continued with social activity in order to maintain momentum and maximise the value of the content assets produced. The post-event infographic (included with this submission) told the social story of how the event unfolded with an overview
of trending topics and the most influential users. This content also incorporated Equinix’s promotional statistics.
Budgets
These details were provided to judges in the original submission but are commercially sensitive
and therefore confidential.
www.hitfirstbase.com tel: 020 3542 6644 | email: [email protected]
EQUINIX:
HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO
ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES
Results
82,461 organic impressions
248,576 paid impressions
331,000 impressions in total for Equinix branded content
Traffic to the Equinix website jumped by almost 50% compared to the same period in the
previous 12 months.
Twitter and LinkedIn activity, including both paid and non-paid activity, led to Equinix branded
content attracting in excess of 4,000 URL clicks. This included over 500 visits to the ‘book a
meeting’ page alone. 55% of LinkedIn clicks were from c-level users
Best performing Twitter CTR – 3.08% - industry avg. 1%
www.equinix.co.uk
Best performing LinkedIn CTR – 0.294% - industry avg. 0.1%
GARTNER SYMPOSIUM/
ITXPO BARCELONA 2014
Overall Twitter CTR – 1.8%
HOW THE EVENT UNFOLDED THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
See the top trends, topics and influencers from this year’s
European ITxpo event as told through social media users.
Overall LinkedIn CTR – 0.201%
HUGE SOCIAL COMMUNITY INVOLVED
4,000+ people attend in person, but with a social reach of over 9 million – join the community.
Twitter poll page received over 1,000 visits in total, from both paid
and organic activity.
8,982
64,166,429
14,152
RETWEETS
4,156
IMPRESSIONS
VOLUME OF
#GARTNERSYM
TWEETS
MENTIONS
9,985,570
TOTAL REACH
10,540
LANGUAGES UPDATES WERE SHARED IN
GARTNER ITXPO LINKEDIN GROUP MEMBERS
ENGLISH
DUTCH
FRENCH
SPANISH
GERMAN
ITALIAN
299
DISCUSSIONS
567
COMMENTS ON A GLOBAL SCALE
Sources: Gartner ITxpo LinkedIn group analysis, Commun.it, Hashtagify.me
HOT TOPICS AND TRENDING THEMES
What social industry leaders and event attendees discussed most.
The social universe creates popular leaders and influencers – learn
‘who’s who’ for Gartner ITxpo social leadership and get connected.
www.equinix.co.uk
GARTNER SYMPOSIUM/
ITXPO BARCELONA 2014
TOP FIVE MOST
MENTIONED
SUBJECTS
TOP 10 HASHTAGS
USED ALONGSIDE
#GARTNERSYM
- GUY KAWASAKI
- SMART DATA
- SIEMEN’S SIEGFRIED
RUSSWURM
- ERICSSON CONSUMER LAB
- BIMODAL IT
#CIO
#CLOUD
#DIGITALBUSINESS
#PEERCONNECT
#BIGDATA
#IOT
#SAMSUNGGSYM
#MOBILE
#BBMMEETINGS
#GARTNER
MOST INFLUENTIAL
TWEETERS
@BLACKBERRY – BLACKBERRY
@GARTNER_INC – GARTNER
@MR_GADGET – ARNOLD ARANEZ
@MCEWENROBBIE – ROBBIE MCEWEN
@LEWISPUGH – LEWIS PUGH
@AMBASSADORCIO – ROBERT SCHMIDT
@CHADWICKHALSE – CHADWICK HALSE
@AUTHOR_JEFF – JEFF JOSEPH AUTHOR
@VALAAFSHAR – VALA AFSHAR
Sources: Gartner ITxpo LinkedIn group analysis. Commun.it. Hashtagify.me. Twitonomy
GARTNER ITXPO BARCELONA IS A GLOBAL SOCIAL EVENT
The active #GartnerSYM social community stretches far beyond Europe
– see where you could reach.
HOW THE EVENT UNFOLDED THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
See the top trends, topics and influencers from this year’s
European ITxpo event as told through social media users.
HUGE SOCIAL COMMUNITY INVOLVED
Sources: Twitonomy hashtag search tool
4,000+ people attend in person, but with a social reach of over 9 million – join the community.
8,982
64,166,429
14,152
RETWEETS
4,156
IMPRESSIONS
VOLUME OF
#GARTNERSYM
TWEETS
MENTIONS
9,985,570
TOTAL REACH
THE EQUINIX EXPERIENCE AT GARTNER ITXPO 2014
This year’s event was the most inspirational yet – incredibly insightful speakers,
motivational stories of innovation and new possibilities and many interesting
networking conversations with our customers, peers and CIO leaders.
#1 ATTENDED
SOLUTION PROVIDER
SESSION WITH
176 INDUSTRY
LEADERS
IN SESSION
50+
AUGMENTED
REALITY
DATA CENTRE TOURS
THROUGH GOOGLE
CARDBOARD AND
IPAD VR
170+
ATTENDEES
FOR EQUINIX
WELCOME DRINKS
Sources: Equinix attendee anecdotal information
SIX KEY EQUINIX PARTNERS
10,540
LANGUAGES UPDATES WERE SHARED IN
GARTNER ITXPO LINKEDIN GROUP MEMBERS
ENGLISH
DUTCH
FRENCH
SPANISH
GERMAN
ITALIAN
299
DISCUSSIONS
567
COMMENTS ON A GLOBAL SCALE
www.equinix.co.uk
Sources: Gartner ITxpo LinkedIn group analysis, Commun.it, Hashtagify.me
HOT TOPICS AND TRENDING THEMES
What social industry leaders and event attendees discussed most.
The social universe creates popular leaders and influencers – learn
‘who’s who’ for Gartner ITxpo social leadership and get connected.
www.hitfirstbase.com tel: 020 3542 6644 | email: [email protected]
EQUINIX:
HARNESSING SOCIAL MEDIA TO
ENGAGE C-LEVEL AUDIENCES
Client testimonial
Milena Mitova, Interim Campaigns Manager, Equinix:
“This hugely successful campaign marked a new level of social performance for us as a company.
It was planned by First Base as a coordinated part of our marketing mix, with a brief to raise our
awareness and engage the hard to reach CIO audience. It was critical we worked with an agency
partner that not only understood our business model, technology and vision, but who could translate our needs into a cohesive and innovative strategy. Right from the start of working with First
Base, it was clear we’d found a responsive agency, one that knew how to leverage our investment
in Gartner ITxpo to maximise our presence for accelerated awareness. Ranking in the top ten most
mentioned brands across all social channels was an incredible achievement and has generated a
healthy pipeline and community of contacts for us to nurture.”
www.hitfirstbase.com tel: 020 3542 6644 | email: [email protected]