@GMA pumps up the volume as @onedirection hits Central Park

Monday, 2 December 2013

Good Morning America invited international music sensation @onedirection to play a live concert on November 26. To do it, the boys took over Central Park — and Twitter.

With a barrage of Tweets and Vine videos before and during the concert and use of the hashtag #1DonGMA, @GMA had a social media success on its hands.

There were over 82,000 Tweets about the show, according to Nielsen SocialGuide — 17 times the number for the previous day’s program. Those Tweets were seen 2.7 million times; #1DonGMA was mentioned 55,672 times.

Here’s what @GMA did to make the concert into a frenzy on Twitter.

Videos and photos
The Vine videos @GMA tweeted were high in creativity, quantity and variety — from an equipment check to messages from fans. Good Morning America also asked questions and announced the beginning of the concert.

@GMA also tweeted a Vine video about the hashtag#1DonGMA in order to encourage its use. Using a single hashtag organized the conversation on Twitter, so that users could search for the event and join in.

Perhaps the most powerful moment occurred when @GMA brought fans to meet one of the world’s most popular bands. Vine videos like this one brought viewers closer to the action:

In addition, @GMA’s photos performed very well, gathering thousands of retweets and favorites. This is one that has become one of @GMA’s top five most retweeted Tweets of all time:

Promotion
On November 12, @GMA announced that @onedirection would be performing on the show later in the month, and @onedirection followed with its own announcement that day.

With those initial Tweets, #1DonGMA began inspiring fan Tweets and continued to be the gathering place for conversation before, during and after the concert. @GMA tweeted intermittently about the event until Monday morning. That’s when the frequency really picked up.

@GMA asked for questions from fans and featured the handles of all members of the band, not to mention the call-to-action Tweets encouraging viewers to tune in. Good Morning America shared its excitement for the concert in this promotional Vine video:

When the performance was over, @GMA asked its Twitter audience how they enjoyed the show. And then, @GMA tweeted one last item: One Direction will tour in North America in 2014.

Do you know of other innovative uses of Twitter? Write to [email protected].