In the summer of 2011, in cooperation with HootSuite, MediaLeaders set out to showcase how profitable social media can be for a business more accustomed to measuring revenue and sales through traditional channels. The MediaLeaders reached out to The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas, one of the most cutting edge casinos with a large celebrity following which they could leverage to cultivate new techniques. Their proposal was quickly accepted, and the project was born.

1. The Palms Case Study
Anatomy of a Tweet
Case Study
Introduction
Josh Ochs is the grassroots marketing founder behind MediaLeaders, the social media
strike team that manages Twitter and Facebook campaigns for over a dozen brands.
In the summer of 2011, in cooperation with HootSuite, MediaLeaders set out to
showcase how profitable social media can be for a business more accustomed
to measuring revenue and sales through traditional channels. The MediaLeaders
reached out to The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas, one of the most cutting edge
casinos with a large celebrity following which they could leverage to cultivate new
techniques. Their proposal was quickly accepted, and the project was born.
A History of Social Success:
In 2009, Josh Ochs was nearly
elected to city council in Hermosa
Beach, CA by leading his own
grassroots marketing campaign and
using his social media methodology
to gain votes from 1 out of every 4
voters in the district.
Connect with Josh Ochs.
Learn more about Josh’s Social
Campaign Objectives & Goals
Media Strike Team.
The goal of the project was to show that a hotel in Las Vegas can track each
room booking or transaction back to a SINGLE Tweet or Facebook post,
thereby measuring the direct ROI of social media actions. Understanding the
complexities involved in their proposal, the MediaLeaders team approached
HootSuite to coordinate on this project to ensure they had the tools, tracking and
team functionality required for a heavy-weight social media campaign.

2. The Palms Case Study
Case Study Anatomy of a Tweet
The primary goal was to sell rooms. Additionally, from a project perspective, having the mechanisms to track the
Here is an example of one of MediaLeaders customer path from tweet to transaction would allow the MediaLeaders to test
most engaging and profitable Tweets:
and refine their formula for messaging. The team could also discover the best
time of day to optimize their social media engagement, resulting in greater
numbers of hotel reservations.
Using HootSuite, the MediaLeaders’ social media strategy involved customer
retention techniques, brand awareness efforts and demonstrating full circle ROI
on their actions. The goals were to:
1. Sell a minimum of 15 transactions using Facebook and/or Twitter
during the July 18th - August 19th campaign
2. Maintain room-rate integrity and sell exclusive packages and upgrades
3. Save money on web development by using existing web properties and
driving leads to current landing pages
4. Shape a consistent and engaging voice for The Palms social presences in
order to sell room bookings
5. Reach unhappy customers and resolve issues to prevent their negative
messages from spreading to larger audiences
6. Track sales directly from Twitter and Facebook to demonstrate an effective
return on investment
Achieving Success
In order to achieve the goals set out in their proposal, the MediaLeaders team
needed to engage their audience, collaborate with The Palms on a daily basis,
manage social networks and track their success. Using the HootSuite Dashboard
as a social media management system, the team was able to monitor Twitter for
keywords and brand mentions. This allowed them to then reach out to anyone
Tweeting about their upcoming “Vegas Trip” and asking questions about
Palm’s deals. They utilized geo-location tools in the HootSuite Dashboard to
“target follow” those who were checking in to various places within the Palms
and their surrounding properties.
The team also used HootSuite to monitor conversations between the @Palms
Twitter profile and various followers. It was important to see the types of
questions followers responded to, as well as track team member responses to
avoid redundancies.
The MediaLeaders team worked directly with The Palms in a collaborative
engagement document. In this document, the team calculated the perfect times,
messaging, and trackable links in under 140 characters to be approved by The Palms.

3. The Palms Case Study
Case Study Anatomy of a Tweet
Staying nimble: As in all businesses, This document accompanied a daily process to keep all elements (and team
The Palms website was under members) organized:
development during small periods
of the case study. To mitigate user
The Palms team alerted the MediaLeaders with special events or new
frustrations and prevent revenue loss,
packages and deals to promote on social networks
the MediaLeaders team was able
MediaLeaders utilized HootSuite to engage every 30 minutes and respond
to step up their social media role,
further engaging and communicating to questions and/or RT great Tweets about @Palms
through social channels and, MediaLeaders drafted messaging for approval two days in advance, giving
therefore, alleviated the stress on The Palms team the opportunity to review, edit, and approve messaging
The Palms support and sales team. The MediaLeaders team scheduled messaging for deployment on Twitter
using HootSuite
The MediaLeaders team published Facebook posts each day at 4pm
The MediaLeaders team’s test and refine strategy resulted in a successful formula
for creating content. Constant and consistent monitoring allowed the team to
look at the results of their various messages and adjust to garner the highest
level of engagement from their audience. They started with a hypothesis around
how to book rooms on social media, but found it was important to test many
different combinations of messaging to actually get people to buy. Towards the
end of the month-long campaign, they learned that the shorter the message, the
more clicks and conversions they got.
The Anatomy of a Successful Twitter Sweepstakes
The MediaLeaders constructed a sweepstakes to promote a special one night booking package that they could promote on
Twitter and Facebook.
1 Give Away Decide what will be given away: 1 night GTL package.
Decide where/when contest will take place and add rules to new landing page on Palms.com:
2 Where/When Twitter between August 1- August 7.
Decide what participants need to RT to enter to win: “ I want to win a 1 night Vegas GTL
3 Text to RT package w/ drink tix & VIP club access @Palms. Join me: http://t.co/vJclBR8”.
Duplicate GTL package page that includes a RT to enter to win button, rules to entry, and a
4 New Landing Page widget where people can book their package immediately.
a. 4 winners: 2 free drink tickets on their next Vegas visit.
5 Secondary Prizes
b. Give all participants a “2 for 1” BOGO (Buy One, Get One free) drink coupon for the
Palms casino bar.
c. Directed the Twitter participants to the official Facebook page, where there was a custom
tab where the coupon would reside.

4. The Palms Case Study
Case Study Anatomy of a Tweet
Results
Know your network: Understanding Using the HootSuite Social Analytics functionality, the MediaLeaders team not
the social network you’re using and only tracked metrics like followers and fans, but measured the dollar value of
the audience behavior is important each message by showing the path from Tweet to transaction.
for engagement. Sharing photos on
Facebook has become tremendously They exceeded their room rate reservation goal by 7 transactions (47%)
popular, and attracts a lot of attention.
They exceeded revenue goals by 67%
The MediaLeaders made sure that
Start Date: July 18th – 45,164 followers
every Facebook post had a flashy,
End Date: August 19 – 47,760 followers
square image along with an engaging
question and call to action. The
Growth of 2596 Twitter followers in 30 days
results were beyond expectations, 26.11% of tweets are Replies to [@] other users
showing massive increases in 35.74% of tweets are ReTweets [RT] of other users
impressions, likes, and comments.
During the Twitter sweepstakes campaign, the MediaLeaders successfully gained
over 300 RT’s:
With HootSuite’s advanced Facebook
functionality, posting photos from
the dashboard is simple, and you
can filter search streams for media
content like photos and videos for
efficient monitoring.
Twitter Average Growth per Month: Facebook Average Growth per Month:
Josh Ochs and his team at and 3 languages. From these events, More on MediaLeaders:
MediaLeaders serve as a social media Josh and his team stay on the bleeding socialmediastriketeam.com
strike team that manages Twitter/ edge of word-of-mouth marketing and medialeaders.tv
Facebook/LinkedIn for over a dozen they use this as their “secret sauce” Follow up:
brands. Before starting his company, to coach clients and advise brands on twitter.com/hootsuite
Josh launched an international how to connect with their customers in blog.hootsuite.com/media
networking event company that now a meaningful way. Visit hootsuite.com/plans for Basic, Pro
operates in over 15 cities, 4 countries and Enterprise packages