The other day I decided to conduct a bit of a social media experiment.
I've done a few of these over the year, including spending several hundred dollars on Facebook advertising. I discovered it is not as easy as one might think to take advantage of social media.
The experiment would take place simultaneously over two Facebook pages, with similar results but entirely different conclusions. The pages in question were that of Pipeline News (facebook.com/PipelineNews), of which I am editor, and Brian Zinchuk Publishing (facebook.com/BrianZinchukPublishing), my photography sideline business. Both pages had similar numbers of "likes," with 352 and 325 respectively.
On a Tuesday morning I got an email from a project manager, asking if I could get the word out in our paper. Some massive pieces of equipment would be shipped the following Thursday and Friday from Oxbow to the Potash Corp mine at Rocanville. The components were up to 36 feet wide and 28 feet tall. They required SaskPower lifting its power lines, and a police escort. All highway traffic along its planned route would have to make way for it. This was something that was going to have a direct impact on people's lives on those two days. It was too late to make our printed edition, but I said I would put it on our Pipeline News Facebook page.
That same morning I put together an attempt at an Internet meme - one of those things that gets shared repeatedly because it's interesting, thought provoking, funny or in some cases, dumb at this time last year, I inserted a drilling rig picture of mine into a scene from The Empire Strikes Back and posted it. I discovered it quickly went viral on a small scale. With a little push, it quickly hit over 4,000 views. Thus, knowing anything Star Wars related has viral potential, I would try it again.
With a little bit of work in Photoshop, I inserted Darth Vader's Imperial walkers from The Empire Strikes Back into a picture I took of a drilling rig the previous frigid weekend, one of the coldest on record. The walkers look like they are attacking the rig. The caption said, "Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, come -52 C wind chill or Imperial walkers, we're still drilling."
The idea was to appeal to the oilfield community, it's sense of toughness despite miserable conditions, and to play on Star Wars. It's also meant to play on Canadian pride in enduring our winters, and our general weariness of a winter that does not want to end.
On the Pipeline News post, I simply let it be, and didn't do any promotion. On the Brian Zinchuk Publishing side, I shared it with numerous friends, sent it to several media outlets, drilling-related and Star Wars fan site Facebook accounts.
Almost exactly 48 hours later, the results are eerily similar in some ways, but the impact was quite different. Facebook's Insights analysis showed on the Star Wars meme, I had 5,042 people reached, with 103 total likes, 26 shares and 304 post clicks. A measly three comments registered. Two more people "liked" my photography Facebook page.
On the Pipeline News analysis, that posting has 5,114 people reached. There were only 23 likes, but a whopping 93 shares, for a total of 619 post clicks. It also got 15 comments. More importantly, it added 28 people who now like the Pipeline News page and will hopefully follow future posts.
So what does all this mean? Josh, a professional photographer friend of mine, told me, "How many of these possible additional likes are going to turn into clients, though? I just see it as something that people will like because it's funny right now and then they'll never return. Just being realistic. And you know that someone is going to simply crop it like this, repost it and get 10x more likes than you can get, right?"
He then sent me a version of the photo with my logo chopped off.
Everything Josh said about my photography post was bang on. The cutesy Star Wars post got lots of eyeballs and next to zero traction. It had next to no views until RigHands.com, with 130,000 likes on its page, shared it. They did go to the effort of tracking down my website and phone number and then called me to talk about it using this weird thing called voice communications. They asked what I did and asked if I would be interested in writing for them. I declined, but if that counts as a job offer of sorts, then at least I got something out of it.
On the other hand, the same number of people who saw the Pipeline News post saw something that potentially had a real impact on their lives if they lived in that area, and 93 people thought it might be important enough to let other people know. This was a case of social media being timely and impactful, and thus, it went viral in that area. I would estimate a share is worth 10 times, and maybe as much as 100 times, the social capital of a like. So with 93 shares, it was a phenomenal response for a local item.
As we've seen here, social media can have an impact, if the content is something worth sharing.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
