Esports is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries, and there’s fierce competition among brands for awareness and engagement. To help the Esports Industry Awards become a thought leader within the sector, we powered up the brand on social media with a 1,850% increase in mentions.
The Esports Industry Awards is an annual event that celebrates competitive gaming’s best and brightest. Its first ceremony took place in 2016 and it needed to be a huge success so the Awards could make a name for themselves both within the industry and among sponsors.
However, as esports was still largely unknown at the time and no paid advertising budget was available, this was no easy feat.
Though understanding of esports audiences was still growing at the time, it was clear that fans heavily used social media. We therefore focused on Twitter as our key channel.
Before the event, we leveraged some of the Awards’ connections and engaged with the likes of Ali A, KSI, David Haye and James Buckley. This helped us win the retweets and mentions necessary to raise awareness.
As the event itself was open to just a few hundred invited guests, the vast majority of esports’ key audience did not have access. To solve this problem, a hashtag (#EsportsIA) was set up, and fans and attendees were invited to tweet using it. These tweets were then moderated by a member of our team and appeared on live screens set up at the venue.
To ensure coverage continued after the event, we reached out to a number of key media outlets. Along with esports outlets, we also targeted general interest outlets and those that covered the wider sporting arena. This helped us ensure we were connecting with new audiences, not just those who were already engaged with esports.
Finally, we created a bespoke digital video brochure and report pack to document the event’s success for sponsors. We also maintained organic social posts with content that drove audiences to the Awards’ Twitch and YouTube channels.
Neon were introduced to us via a partner of ours at very late notice prior to our 2016 show. The short time scale to produce the desired results did not phase the digital team, as Neon came in and helped enormously with an all-encompassing marketing and social media strategy.
During our time on the account, mentions of the Esports Industry Awards’ on Twitter grew by 1,850%. Additionally…
Since this inaugural event, the EIA has continued to thrive and is now firmly established as a key industry voice.
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