Name of entry:
NightLife Insiders

Name of company:
California Academy of Sciences

Category:
Energizing

Description of NightLife Insiders:
NightLife is a weekly event where visitors ages 21 and older can enjoy music, science, entertainment and cocktails, while experiencing the world-class exhibits within the California Academy of Sciences. The goal of the NightLife Insiders program is to engage Creators and Critics by inviting bloggers, yelpers, or other community members to become engaged ambassadors for NightLife and create buzz and excitement and raise awareness around NightLife through these new networks with word-of-mouth marketing. Through an application process we were able to identify six candidates who were judged and scored in the following: creativity and originality; humor; quality of written essay; grammar, spelling and structure; and activity in social media. These selected participants volunteered as NightLife Insiders for a three-month period and were required to attend a minimum of 8 NightLife events and after which blog, tweet, post to Facebook, Yelp, create a video, and/or generally talk about the event through their own channels. In return the Insiders received free access to NightLife events; information about event speakers, music, and other entertainment before it was revealed to the general public; complimentary VIP tours; reserved passes for events, planetarium shows, and other programs; a bio on our NightLife web page; and more. Any content created by the Insiders were reposted to the NightLife Facebook page, Academy Twitter account, Academy YouTube channel, and elsewhere.

NightLife web page:

NightLife Insider bios on web page:

How does the NightLife Insiders program accomplish the Academy’s goals?
This program was an effective way to engage and leverage members of our audience who are already active in social media. The NightLife Insiders offered access to untapped social networks through which they helped spread awareness and word-of-mouth marketing about our events. Collectively, the six chosen NightLife Insiders had more than 5,000 contacts/fans/followers through all of their own social networking accounts and we were able to repost their content to over 22,000 of the Academy’s own contacts/fans/followers. We also saw a lot of positive feedback from the Insiders; after the program ended in late July, more than half of the participants requested to extend their role as ambassadors of our events.