Title of Post: Summer of 2015 is a Twitter success for Gibson
Organization: Gibson Brands (formerly Gibson Guitars)
Contact: Taylor Kohanek, Simply Measured
Industry: Manufacturer of guitars, banjos, mandolins and other musical instrument
Web references: Gibson Simply Measured Wikipedia, Twitter
What started as a company to manufacture mandolins in 1898 has grown to one of the most recognizable guitar brands.
Although successful since its inception, in 1952 Gibson introduced us to their first solid-body electric guitar, the Les Paul which was a game changer in the guitar world. The Les Paul is its most popular guitar to date and has been played by many legendary guitarists over the years and has become the guitar of choice by very successful musicians such as: Lenny Kravitz, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) Eric Clapton, Slash, Bob Marley, Alex Lifeson (Rush) and the list goes on and on.
Summer of 2015
Since most bands and artists are on tour during the summer months, Gibson took to their twitter account from June-August 2015 to engage with their fans, followers and influencers.
Over the 3 month period Gibson engaged with 32,324 people and accumulated 134,491 in total engagement. The potential reach they had in this twitter campaign was astronomical. 
How did Gibson succeed in achieving these numbers?
The campaign focused on 3 areas:
- Recognize stars on their Birthday or Anniversary’s.
- Cross promote other products
- Utilize your influences
Recognizing stars on their Birthdays or Anniversary’s.
During this campaign Gibson tweeted 761 times and 6 out of their top 10 posts recognized these milestones.
Top tweets included wishing Robert Plant (Led Zepplin) a Happy Birthday and also recognizing the 25th anniversary death of Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Cross Promote Other Products
Gibson did a great job of displaying beautiful product in tweets. They often cross-promote and mention their other handles, @CustomGibson and @GibsonAcoustic
ES-355 in Alpine White pic.twitter.com/HGOvz4Nocn
— Gibson Custom Shop (@CustomGibson) July 22, 2015
This is a great way of building awareness for new product offerings or other brands your company owns.
Utilize your Influences
A major goal for most social marketers is to find ways to expand their reach and impressions and grow your community.
http://twitter.com/LennyKravitz/status/630179577134977024/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
.@FooFighters #DaveGrohl rocks Gibsons on 2015 tour http://t.co/nbF5ypBGgI (Photos/story: @AnneErickson) #everlong pic.twitter.com/2nrRXrDn6n
— Gibson (@gibsonguitar) August 26, 2015
Since Gibson has a pretty impressive list of influences, this helped them expand their potential reach by gaining exposure through other users.
As you can see with the 1 tweet from Lenny Kravitz he has over 4 million followers who will see the @Gibsonguitar tweet.
Lessons learned:
Every organization is unique so their social media metrics will be different. What worked for Gibson during this campaign was the timing of the campaign (summer 2015), using cross promotion to highlight other products and utilizing their access to influences.
If your organization is not as large as Gibson, the audio component below may assist you in setting and reaching your social media goals on twitter and how you can measure your social ROI.
To contact the author of this entry please email: lynn.jeffries@sympatico.ca
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.