How NASA's Using Twitter To Promote The Mars Rover Launch
When you think of high-tech, one of the first organization's that comes to mind is NASA. They put men on the moon, send probes to Jupiter carrying small lego statues of Galileo, and launch dune buggy like rovers to explore the surface of Mars. Since the inception of the space program, NASA has held the world in thrall.
They're also showing their tech savvy with their innovative use of social media to promote the upcoming Mars Rover Launch, and what they're doing is a great example of what all sentient species of marketers can do to promote their businesses and organizations.
Create A Social Event
NASA is going to conduct a tweetup from the launch site itself, to help generate buzz and interest in the launch. To get attention and encourage social advocacy, they have announced that they will randomly select 150 of their Twitter followers to attend the launch and participate in the tweetup. Tweetup registration opens at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT) on Wed, Oct. 5, and closes at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EST) on Fri., Oct. 7. For more information and rules about the Tweetup and registration, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup
What a cool idea! Imagine winning a trip to witness the launch of a spacecraft. You may be wondering what you could do to promote your business that compares with that, and it may not require a rocket scientist to figure it out. NASA is in the business of launching rockets, what business are you in? What events does your business host that could be turned into a Tweetup, or what explosive events could you conjure up that your customers and followers would find worthy of lifting off their couch to go take part in, and tweet about it to others?
Pick A Spot On Your Favorite Planet And Turn It Into A Tweetup
NASA intends the Tweetup from Nov 23-25th to provide its social media followers (and if you don't follow NASA you should because the stories and accompanying images are nothing short of fascinating) the chance to meet other followers and the NASA social media team, tour the Kennedy Space center, meet the scientists and engineers, and even view the launch event (assuming there are no delays) of "Curiosity," the latest Mars Science Laboratory rover, from Cape Canaveral.
It's going take Curiosity around ten months to travel the distance from Earth to Mars, and when it gets there it is going to be landing in an area near the Gale Crater that scientists believe could contain signs of microbial life on Mars, past or present, if there are any.
Drive Traffic To Your Website
NASA's mission is to educate and share the findings of the Mars Rover with the public. Their tweets, emails, and Facebook posts all drive traffic back to their website where more details about the findings of their missions are available, along with mission history and photography. I could spend hours just reading about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Imagine the excitement that will be generated if life is actually found on Mars, and the way word will spread throughout the Twitterverse
If signs of life are also found at your Tweetup event, leverage that by creating a hashtag and encouragin tweeps to employ it in their tweets. Then make sure there's remarkable and engaging content about the Tweetup on your website along with whatever other call to action, offer and conversion mechanism you think will turn your new found attention on Twitter into leads.
A Tweetup is a great way to blast your social media followers into the stratosphere, and have new customers and site visitors orbiting your business.
You can follow the Mars Curiosity mission on social media:
via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MarsCuriosity
and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity .
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-302&cid=release_2011-302