How TES Global used the power of social media to teach children about rocket science

introductionBetween November and February this 2016, TES Global worked with the European SpaceAgency and the British Space Agency to deliver a live lesson with British astronaut Tim Peake aboard the International Space Station.

We asked teachers to sign up their classes to a live link with Tim Peake on the ISS, and our ultimate aim was to make this the world’s largest schools and space science event.

It was our objective for this partnership to specifically support science learning by providing a spark on which to build inspiration in classrooms across the country. 

In the run-up to the event, in addition to baseline calls-to-action on our social media profiles, we focused on driving engagement through targeting key times when we knew an engaged audience would be online. For example, this post was our most engaged with, shared during the BBC show ‘Stargazing Live’ in December 2015

Additional earned engagement came via the Cosmic Classroom Twibbon we created.

It acted as a badge of honour for teachers and schools, signaling they were part of something bigger, and additionally encouraged other users to install the Twibbon too.

This ‘intention signaling’ helped spread word about the event on Facebook and Twitter, and although it istough to quantify this activity, 73 accounts installed a Twibbon on their social mediaaccounts.

Twibbon

Thanks to good communication with our partners, we were able to secure shares from Tim Peake himself, who is lucky enough to be able to share to Twitter and Facebook from the International Space Station. When Tim sent an update, unsurprisingly, we saw a huge spike in sign-ups.

Good communication

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500,000 viewersTuned in on a Tuesday afternoon at

2pm to watch Tim Peake and ask him questions

Outcomes

o #CosmicClassroom hashtag trended at #1 on Twitter for six hours in the UK

o Tim Peake tweeted the hashtag from the ISS in the lead up to the event - a Twitter update sent from the ISS to earth

o #CosmicClassroom mentions on the day: 4,571

o Total Twitter reach on the day: 7.4 million users

o Total Twitter impressions on the day: 36.1 million

o 500,000 viewers in 58 countries globally

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

Takeaways

o Owned media volume equals engagement success but not without the legwork: the effort we put into building relationships, raising awareness and engaging with our audience on social media generated huge return on our efforts.

o Less can be more: The volume of the messages sent had little impact on referrals suggesting that timing, quality and relevancy are stronger converters.

o A good working relationship between us and our partners in this project was vital to our success Out of the top five sources of earned media, four were partners in this endeavor.

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

THANK YOU

BEN STROUD, FEBRUARY 2016WWW.THEWHATNOISE.COM

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