2011 Golden Globe Awards

mhCarter Consulting was selected from among several competing firms to serve as the official media agency for the 2011 Golden Globe Awards. Once notified, our team briefed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) Executive Board and Membership on the social media landscape. We then created a comprehensive social media strategic plan that served as the base of our plan of action for the massive task ahead of us.

The Goals

Through a series of meetings with the HFPA Board and membership, it was determined that the main goals were to increase television ratings (especially in the 18-49 demographic) and keep viewers tuned in throughout the show. It was clear to us that a deep engagement with fans would satisfy the desire to raise awareness among younger viewers and would give viewers a reason to remain tuned into the show.

Setting the Stage

To begin, mhCarter Consulting secured “goldenglobes” as a brand on all essential social media sites. This included working with our contacts at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to recover previously created (squatted) “goldenglobes” accounts to serve as the official pages of the HFPA. We also worked with the staff at Twitter HQ to get the @goldenglobes account officially verified.

mhCarter on the Red CarpetNext, our staff was tasked with managing the Golden Globes’ social media channels before, during, and after the event. Several members of the HFPA were also trained to manage the different social media sites.

mhCarter Consulting also worked with the journalists of the HFPA to create the “HFPA Digital” team. This new team was tasked with gathering exclusive content for the Golden Globes.

Pre-show Coverage

MHCC, along with HFPA Digital was focused on giving fans an inside look into the creation of the Golden Globe Awards show. HFPA Digital obtained exclusive interviews with celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Robert Pattinson, and Ricky Gervais. To include the fans in these interviews, MHCC solicited questions from the various social media channels and these questions were used to interview the celebrities. The answers to these fan-sourced questions were immediately distributed back to the fans through the social media sites. By deeply engaging with these influencial users, we were able to successfully amplify the message of the Golden Globes and the HFPA across the various social media channels.

MHCC also worked with Bump Networks to design a Golden Globes Gift Bag sweepstakes on the Wildfire Interactive platform. The contest was then integrated into the Golden Globes Facebook page, website, and a standalone Twitter app was developed. On Facebook, people were required to become a fan of the Golden Globes to enter and were given more contest entries for each new person they incentivized to become a fan. Similarly on Twitter, people were required to become a follower and were given a tool to tweet out messages to their followers to encourage them to enter the contest and follow the Golden Globes. For each person that acted on these tweets, the original person received additional entries. All visitors to the Golden Globes website were also encouraged to enter the sweepstakes.

The Red Carpet

The MHCC staff was stationed on the Golden Globes Red Carpet along with the HFPA Digital team to provide fans with immediate access to the arriving celebrities. MHCC was at the head of the Red Carpet covering the live event and feeding the @goldenglobes Twitter account with the first photos released from the event. The HFPA Digital team was also covering Red Carpet in multiple places interviewing celebrities and covering the fashion of the evening.

Another huge part of the success of the evening was due to the involvement of the Consumer Marketing team at Facebook. MHCC arranged for Randi Zuckerberg, Head of Facebook Consumer Marketing to guest post on the Golden Globes Facebook page during the event. With the help of her talented colleagues, Erin Kanaley and Charles Porch, Randi gave fans an inside look into Red Carpet arrivals and posted live from the Golden Globes ballroom.

Covering the Big Show

For the first time in Golden Globes history, the fans were “honorary members of the press” in the backstage press room. The MHCC team was stationed in the backstage pressroom to pose questions to Golden Globe winners directly from @goldenglobes Twitter followers.

MHCC engaged with Barry Cox from TweetRiver to provide the social curation platform that allowed us to filter through the thousands of celebrity questions that were submitted. Omid Ashtari from Twitter was also instrumental in making this such a success.

Live from the Exclusive After-Parties

Our job was not over at the end of the show. The MHCC team continued to bring the fans along by providing live updates from events such as the InStyle Magazine/Warner Bros. After-Party. MHCC’s collaboration with large brands such as InStyle Magazine produced event buzz that was mutually beneficial. Our work with Bronwyn Barnes, Entertainment Editor at InStyle was key to making this all happen.

The Results

The results speak for themselves. Because of our focused and comprehensive approach, the Golden Globes experienced record breaking engagement numbers.

Television Ratings:

  • A total of 17 million viewers tuned into the show
  • The Golden Globes scored the highest rating for NBC among all adults 18-49 than any other non-sports show for the prior year.
  • For the entire 3-hour period, the Golden Globe Awards won its time period in total viewers, all adults 18-49, and all adults 25-54.
  • The 18-49 viewers were the key demographic for the HFPA since the show was previously trending to an older audience.

For Twitter, the Golden Globes experienced the following results:

  • For the period of Sunday, Jan 16 – Monday, January 17
    • Exposure: Over 730 million potential impressions for #GoldenGlobes
    • Reach: #GoldenGlobes tweets were seen by over 39 million people
    • Activity: Over 466 thousand #GoldenGlobes tweets were sent
  • For the three hour period of the Golden Globe Awards broadcast
    • The @goldenglobes account was the #1 mentioned account on Twitter by nearly twice the mentions of the #2 account.
    • The @goldenglobes account was the #1 retweeted account with nearly 4 times the amount of retweets than the #2 account.
    • The @goldenglobes account was retweeted more than the other top 9 accounts – COMBINED
    • According to Trendistic.com, nine of the top ten Twitter topics during the evening were related to the Globes, and 18 out of 20 as well.
    • #GoldenGlobes was tweeted at a rate of 3,554 times per minute during the show
  • For the entire 2011 Golden Globes campaign
    • mhcc increased Twitter followers for the Golden Globes by 828%
    • mhcc increased The Klout score of the Golden Globes from low 50s to 83

On Facebook, the buzz was just as big:

  • Exposure: Over 47 million impressions for Golden Globes related content were seen.
  • At the beginning of the campaign, the HFPA did not have a Facebook fan page. By the end of the Golden Globes show, the HFPA had over 144 thousand fans on Facebook.
  • Working directly with Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, Erin Kanaley, and Charles Porch was key to making this happen.