Insight
Converging An In-Person Event With A Digital Community
It’s no secret; we like doing big things around here. The adage goes, “Everything is bigger in Texas.” And as one of longest-standing clients, the State Fair of Texas not only lives up to this adage as the largest state fair in the U.S. but it is also the longest-running.
Since 1886, the State Fair of Texas has promoted Texas agriculture, education, and community involvement through quality entertainment in a family-friendly environment. And when you’ve been around for more than a century, the need to continue evolving and staying relevant is necessary. Over the years we’ve rolled up our sleeves and pushed our creative thinking to help make each fall in Dallas better than the last.
As our jobs and roles at fair have evolved over the years, we’ve also increased our efforts in digital communications, specifically social media, as one tool the State Fair of Texas uses to reach their audience. The State Fair of Texas is an annual in-person event, but social media also works as a preview of things to come, important announcements, and to keep engagement with the fair going beyond the 24-day run each year.
But simply performing social media work status quo work wasn’t in our wheelhouse. Like the state, we wanted to create a social campaign that was larger than any other fair or livestock show.
When strategizing and planning how we wanted to use social media, we started by diving deep into analytics and trends. We noticed many shows share coverage of one or two species—the grand champion steer for example—but not all champions.
The State Fair of Texas, however, not only has a grand champion steer, it has everything from a rooster crowing contest, to a Miniature Hereford show, to contests for youth in agriculture that don’t have an animal project. And each exhibitor and contestant pays their entry fees. We wanted to make sure everyone felt like they had a place and were welcome at the State Fair of Texas.
Agriculture is diverse, and the state of Texas with its size, has a lot of agricultural diversity. Our presence online needed to reflect the full range of what happens in person at the State Fair of Texas and all the opportunities one has to be a part of the State Fair of Texas. Additionally, while social metrics tend to peak right before, during and immediately after fair, we wanted to increase our overall engagement throughout the year.
To meet our objectives, we created branded graphics for Facebook and Instagram that featured champions in all livestock shows and contests. To complement the champion graphics, knowing there is only one per show/contest but so many memories and important moments, highlight reels were created. This kept us from having too much of a single form of media in the feed and broke up the types of content, while also allowing more people to be included in show coverage online. Stories served as a great tool to show even more behind-the-scenes content. We also took advantage of stories 24-hour window to include more trending sounds, spontaneity and fun interactions.
The results of the campaign outpaced our set goals and established a precedent. The State Fair of Texas was the first and only major livestock show in Texas and state fair which featured every champion equally on their social channels.
Including all champions led to increased engagement from followers. Such as livestock judging champions being one of the most shared posts for all of fair—previously not featured and illustrating the importance of making sure everyone has a space to see themselves as part of the State Fair of Texas.
We set out to make social coverage for the State Fair of Texas relevant and engaging. With more than 200 champion graphics created for the 24-day event, our task was as large as Texas. However, as they say, big rewards come from taking big risks. Going forward, we plan to continue featuring all champions, posting fun and engaging reels and continuing to build momentum online for the State Fair of Texas.
Let’s face it, in today’s chronically online world, social media is where you hear/see it first. And social media coverage can literally make or break an event—whether that’s too little coverage to have the audience engaged or too much bad sharing with not enough good. A thorough strategy of what to cover, a timeline and content calendar, content creation and working with key players in your community all need to come together to pull off a seamless in-person-to-online-coverage event. If your event coverage isn’t garnering the results you want and don’t feel like there is enough hype and your engagement is lacking, reach out to see how we can be of assistance to helping your reach your goals.
Blog adapted from our article in the 2024 Winter ARC Light Newsletter, found here.
