Case Study: 7 People Launch Harry Potter Theme Park

If you are like me, you have heard over and over again how social media has the power to transform your marketing on a limited budget. If you weren’t a believer before, the following case study may change your mind.

When Universal Studios went to launch the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park, they did it by only telling 7 people. You read that correctly 7 people. They selected the 7 most influential Harry Potter bloggers and gave them an exclusive webinar face-to-face with the creators and designers and watched the rest happen.

So what happened? After the webinar the bloggers wrote about the  Wizarding World of Harry Potter in great detail and people passed it along through Facebook, Twitter and emails.

Within 24 hours approximately 350,000,000 people had heard of it through trusted referrals.

I know what you are thinking, your business does not have the star power of Harry Potter. That may be true, but you do have information which is valuable to your customers. The lesson to be learned here is about going out and finding where your customers or target are having conversations and engaging with them.

It is much more effective to engage where your target is already talking than to get them to move over to your conversation. Social media allows you to do this.