First night boston 2018

First Night Boston started in 1975 and has been a New Year’s Eve celebration of artistic performances, the wonders of the season and the beginning of a new year. Boston’s First Night celebration is now managed by Conventures and is free and open to all.

Challenge

When I took over the social media for First Night Boston, the experience had recently changed and the focus was on the Back Bay area. I wanted to shine a light on the area’s restaurants, promote the event through local businesses, increase user-generated content online, and extend the ‘life‘ of the event beyond the one-day event. The challenge was to accomplish all of this with minimal budget and in an environment where digital experiences had not previous been a priority.  

Solutions

• Long-Form Content

  Ten new content articles were created to drive traffic to the website while providing a valuable resource to attendees that was helpful, informative, and entertaining. From infographics to artist spotlights and featured hotels, I drove over 50k impressions on social media, generated almost 1200 clicks, and over 21k page views.

• Digital Scavenger Hunt

  Implementing the Scavenger Hunt as a mobile / digital activation was extremely well received by attendees, local businesses, and the media. My goals for First Night 2018 were to:

  • incorporate a new, digital experience to First Night 2018;

  • drive foot traffic to local businesses; and

  • encourage social sharing to increase earned impressions

  I utilized the GooseChase app to host a mobile scavenger hunt where participants were presented with missions, that when completed, earned them points. Missions required players to upload photos/videos, check in to designated locations using GPS or answer text-based questions, all of which tied to my goals. There were 1,599,700 total points earned by 835 registered attendees, 62 missions (19 digital/43 physical), and 998 photos received. Take a look at the recap linked below for marketing efforts and complete results.

Results

• Impressions 408,682

• Engagements 15,490

• URL Clicks 3,262

• Hashtag (#FirstNightBoston) Mentions 1,174 + Potential Reach ~406,800

• Video Views: ~7k (Facebook 77%, Twitter 20%, Instagram 3%)

Click on the images below to see how this was accomplished.

To see some of the preparation material used to pitch business sponsors or offer social media post copy, click the images below!