PowerPoint Presentation

1How to make an Influencer campaign last forever

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Shannon Johnson @Shayboarder

Hi everyone, Im Shannon Johnson and I work on social media content & strategy at Alaska Airlines. I am a traveler, an adventurer and a storyteller. Today Im going to tell you about three stories: How we launched, engaged, and inspired our audience on our Alaska Air Instagram. 2

3Launching @AlaskaAir

I wish we could say we were one of the early adopters to Instagram but we werent it took a long time to get there even Android users had a full year ahead of us. By the time we made the leap, we had a lot of growth ahead of us.

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4Growing @AlaskaAir

But of course you cant just launch a platform, you have to invest in it. You need to create content that is valuable and interesting to the audience who follow you on that platform. With Instagram, its less about words but knowing that a picture is worth a thousand words. Its visual storytelling and we wanted to build a campaign to boost our growth while telling a story through photography.4

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Bringing a crazy idea to life

We knew the goals. Instagram growth, route awareness, inspire travel and generate photography assets. The idea? Weekend Wanderer. Over the course of one month, every weekend we would send an influencer to a new destination. We would hand them the keys to our Instagram account and they would takeover for the weekend. It was insane. We all work in social media, handing over the keys is not something you do lightly. But we did.5

6Launching Weekend Wanderer

Our first foray into Weekend Wanderer started with four influencers over a period of one month. A mommy blogger to San Francisco, a solo adventurer to Kona, a female traveler to Puerto Vallarta, an outdoorsman to Calgary. Each showcased a wide variety of photography and stories from their destinations they featured. Of course, it didnt always go as planned6

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No matter how much you plan ahead, traveling doesnt always go according to plan. Our weekend wanderer had quite literally wandered off and found herself lost in the jungle, with no reception, trying to find her way back. Meanwhile we were discovering there was a gap in content on her channel and ours. When she shared that she might never leave Puerto Vallarta, she was being serious. In the end, our storyteller captivated the audience with her adventures. She certainly proved traveling can be an adventure, why not embrace it?7

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The results were incredible. In total we had more than 6.6 million impressions and increased our audience by 7,000 fans within a couple weeks. 8

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But did it inspire? It sure did. Fans tagged their friends, shared the content and we received requests from those wanting to be wanderers. 9

10Launching Weekend Wanderer 2.0

In September, we re-launched launch Weekend Wanderer 2.0. This time we revised it so it could function as a long term campaign. Contest? Gone. Microsite, Gone. It was a simple, we wanted amazing visual storytelling so we simplified the campaign and utilized our company blog to showcase the content at the end of each trip. We sent influencers to Seattle, Nashville, Costa Rica and Crested Butte.

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The goal was always to grow our channel. By the time the second version launched, every business had access to Instagram advertising. As our most engaged and fastest growing channel, we wanted to support an Instagram campaign with Instagram advertising. So we tested the waters. We posted a collage that showcased the adventures from the weekend and targeted Instagram accounts. We passed our most liked organic content, we doubled it and then tripled it. We knew it was working when people werent asking Why is this showing on my feed By creating the right content for the channel, it delivered the message loud and clear. Engage, explore and inspire. Be your own #weekendwanderer.

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Again the results were amazing. We grew 10,912 fans from September to December. By evolving the campaign, we found out that it worked to bring it to life once a month.12

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As the program developed, being able to hold accountability for our brand and our influencers to disclose the relationship has evolved. Contracts are clearly written, hashtags are used and legal approval has been key. We work very closely with our legal department on this campaign.

We wanted our influencer campaign to be organic, natural and a trustworthy relationship between a brand and an influencer. Weve found in negotiations this is really key and weve walked away from influencers, and theyve walked away from us when it wasnt going to work.

Giving the influencers more time to adapt on the ground, get comfortable, sightsee and plan a story before they are required to take over for the weekend. 13

14Launching Weekend Wanderer 3.0

After taking a hiatus in early 2016 to launch the new Alaska Airlines brand, we brought back Weekend Wanderer for good. We would send influencers every month to focus on priority markets and routes. So far this year, weve sent influencers to Washington DC to visit the monuments, Santa Barbara to run in a half-marathon, Alaska to explore the outdoors and Bend to get adventurous on the trails.

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Adjusting the budget to spend less with smarter results. It was pretty easy in the beginning to spend money to make this work but adjusting the paid social to spend smartly, adjusting payment to the influencers to fulfill their requirements and budget accordingly over the year. We changed the graphics to work to our advantage and Facebooks feed advantage. We brought back influencers to partner with us.

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Were only a couple months into Version 3.0 for 2016 but weve already surpassed our past Weekend Wanderer versions. Weve hit 8.7 million impressions and gained 9,092 new fans on Instagram. Weve still got 5 months left in this year to deliver even more powerful results.

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17Thank you!

In our story, what started as a risk became a reward. We learned lessons along the way, we simplified the campaign, we tracked results and we realized that a heart-beating risk might just be the best way to create something amazing. And we have a campaign that will last long in the future of Alaska Airlines.

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