by Lovisa Hogstrom @k_lovisa_91
Students jumped headfirst into the land of live-tweeting during our second class on Wednesday, January 10th.
Lecture began with the beginning of the internet. Kelli Matthews started with a discussion of Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Twitter exploded with information, diagrams and commentary about the changing environment of the internet.
At the same time, a post made by Justin Hanes (@justinchanes) about a recent controversy surrounding H&M inspired a lot of engagement. A lot of people commented to Hanes and added their own articles or insights to the chat.
After the initial responses to the H&M controversy, the chat slowed down and tweets returned to focusing on information and commentary.
Enter the Lego fandom.
Matthews introduced the Lego fandom as an example of brands going to the conversation instead of trying to create one themselves.
First, we learned that Lego has unexpected profit sources – on average, children pay $25 for Legos, while adults are willing to pay $2,000. These adult super fans not only purchase thousands of dollars on merchandise and attend conventions, but they also dedicate a great deal of their time on social networking platforms discussing these passions. The Lego marketing team knew they had a goldmine of untapped potential but first they had to figure out how to reach them.
Lego succeeded by reaching out to the online platforms and participated in the conversations happening to learn what consumers were looking for. They also reached out to influencers and invited them to go to headquarters and discuss what they wanted to see in terms of new products.
This example caused an explosion in the chat which lasted for the remainder of class. People were amazed to find out that the Lego fandom had such a large presence and there was a lot of surprise at what Lego did to reach out to them.
Stats:
Tweets: 77
Reach: 97,044
Participants: 40
Tweets included gifs, photos and links.
You did an absolutely amazing job summarizing Wednesday’s class, Lovisa! Crazy to think that our reach almost hit 100k all within our first live-tweeting class session. I’m excited to see how the reach grows as we continue into the term.
Hats off to you, Lovisa, in the first Twitter takeover of our strategic social media class! I appreciate you featuring my Tweet in your blog post. I was really excited to see how it brought engagement to the class; it showed how other students are paying attention to PR even when they are not in class. While I’m not a fan of Legos myself, I think the conversation was really interesting. The Lego fandom definitely applies to more subjects. My fandom is airplanes- I’m all about them!
As an adult fan of Lego I appreciate this content from Lego. I enjoy seeing what others are doing and I think Lego has done a pretty good job leveraging social conversations to push their brand.
Great first post Lovisa! I have been active on social media for years, however am new to Twitter, specifically for this course. When Kelli mentioned our participation grade would not only include in-class participation but also live tweets, I panicked. As a type A student the idea of tweeting in class is daunting! Let’s see how it goes…
Lovisa – this was a great first post to highlight what we discussed in class. I particularly love the title, it draws in attention that this article is more than just a summary of the class period we had. I was shocked at how many adult Lego fans, and almost wanted to mention SOJC professor Dean Mundy because I remember him guest lecturing about Legos in J100.