When the TED organisation wanted to consolidate the runaway success of its first TEDx Amsterdam event, I developed a strategy and lead a team to help them get there.
The Challenge
How do you repeat the runaway success of your first event, while consolidating your position as a new player in the local and international ‘mind-events’ scene, and at the same time building for future success?
The Strategy
Go to the heart of the concept: inspiration.
Although the TEDxAmsterdam organization was active in social media, communications were sporadic and lacked a coherent, consistent strategic intent.
As an event concept that catered to a young, highly engaged, digitally-savvy audience, TEDxAmsterdam required a largely social-media-led approach, which was supplemented by traditional PR and advertising tactics.
The solution
Drawing on the existing TED motto ‘ideas worth spreading’, my team and I created a rich content and communications vision and strategy that celebrated the ‘inspiration that ideas bring.’
The message was positivity, creativity and community as told by the people, providers and places connected to TEDxAmsterdam.
Together with a team of bloggers and content creators, we upgraded the existing website to make it social, and built popular and interactive communities on Twitter and Facebook.
I also initiated a regular e-newsletter communication to fans to provide updates and exclusives on the organization, and created a trailer video which enjoyed terrific viral success around the globe, and was even noticed by the parent TED organization in the US, who commissioned the Amsterdam-based agency who created the video to design content for their major TEDGlobal event.
TEDxAmsterdam continues to be used as a model by other TEDx events globally, and as the organization approaches its fourth event this year, social media channels have enjoyed a surge in numbers.
