3,804,560
Social Impressions
7,529
Social Shares
100,000
visitors to the 70th annual festival
The Challenge:
The Maine Lobster Festival partnered with Dream Local Digital to increase attendance of the 70th annual festival and engage with attendees. The challenge was that traditionally, a large percentage of festival-goers have been tourists with no tie to the area besides having vacationed there. Social media was the only effective mode of communication to reach past and potential attendees.
The Solution:
- Build and optimize paid ad campaigns for Facebook to increase awareness of the festival and social engagement
- Manage and create content for Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter
- Develop and post 2 blogs per month to increase search traffic and provide attendees with festival information
- Introduction and documentation of festival “mascot” Leroy the Lobster
- Write and distribute press releases that highlight the Maine Lobster Festival’s contributions to the community
The Results:
In 2017, the Maine Lobster Festival increased its fan base, engaged viewers and reached over one million social media users. In this time, the Maine Lobster Festival Facebook page reached 1,775,376 users resulting in 7,005 content shares, 5,972 comments, 5,083 new page likes, and 116,750 engaged users. For the festival, the numbers of shares and comments are significant because they represent users all over the country who are interacting with the content and sharing it with their own networks. Even though we know the content on the festival page reached 1,775,376, the true reach is much higher because of the shares. The Facebook ad campaign was invaluable in finding past and potential attendees using detailed, custom targeting. Additionally, Dream Local ran a three-month Google advertising campaign. During the three months of the campaign, Google advertising generated 14.5 percent of the total traffic to MaineLobsterFestival.com. Visitors from AdWords went to an average of 2.9 pages and spent an average of 1 minute and 52 seconds on the site.
Client Brief
The Maine Lobster Festival is an annual festival held in Rockland, Maine, to attract tourists to the region and celebrate Midcoast Maine’s marine culture and businesses. It is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that contributes funds to local organizations including Midcoast Regional Child Development Services, Trekkers and Meals on Wheels.