#cyclONEnation Snapchat campaign

When you think about Iowa State Cyclone Athletics and their online presence you think about the hashtag #cyclONEnation.

Since the beginning, this tagline represented the loyal ISU fan base, which in theory stretched well beyond the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Using Snapchat as a marketing tool to reach a younger demographic, it was now possible to actually see where Cyclones were across the nation.

Due to the campaign’s success, it received national attention.

By the end of the regular basketball season all but one state was unlocked, with well over 700 snap submissions per game from fans.

Below, which comes from the first time this idea was executed,  you can all the five Snaps we used in our story to collect locations of fans. After they were posted, we were sent over 400 snaps from fans in a span of two hours during the live broadcast of the men’s away basketball game (Iowa State vs. Kansas, February 2 on ESPN at 8 p.m. CST).

We knew this would be second nature for fans, as fans were already sending us this information without being primed over the 2014-2015 sport season. Below you can find all 32 states that were “unlocked” during halftime and at the end the game, which ended with one fan winning a gift card worth $100.

The campaign included Facebook, for halftime and final map updates, and also Twitter, to give more updates throughout the game and to prime fans to send us their snap.

Below you can find the minimal analytics Snapchat provides. The first screenshot shows  5,100 had read our first snap 30 minutes after the game had concluded on Monday. The final two show how many viewed it the next morning and into the evening. In 24 hours, 6,800 had started and 6,400 had finished the instructions for the campaign. Having only 400 people NOT finish the story was an all  time low for the account. To measure success at Cyclone Athletics, we focused on the number of views rather than screenshots in 24 hours. We also focus on growth of overall followers, which grew by 48 percent from January 7 to February 3.