#whyloiter
More than 3,000,000 impressions on Twitter alone within two weeks.
One of the most talked about social campaigns in 2014.
Some time ago I attended a talk by a woman named Shilpa Phadke. Her premise was simple - 'We can never guarantee safety (for women) in public spaces, however we must guarantee the right (for women) to be in those public spaces'. It’s a talk that stuck with me and I decided I wanted to do something about it.
Situation: 'Why Loiter' is book written by three women, Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan. It focuses on the same single-minded premise that 'We can never guarantee safety (for women) in public spaces, however we must guarantee the right (for women) to be in those public spaces'. It’s a thought I found to be extremely powerful. However, apart from reading the book and sharing posts and commenting on them on the FB page, I believed that there was more untapped potential within.
Problem: While a lot of people subscribe to the idea of the page (and the book), it remains very passive. There is no active movement, no call to arms that cries out from this page.
Solution: A show of strength. Get people to talk about and support this idea that women can access any part of the city at any time and show that there are in fact women that do! We asked women to post picture of themselves loitering at any time of day, in any city, with the hashtag #whyloiter.
How did we begin? We needed the Why Loiter members and followers to be made aware of this initiative. So we did a series of posts to get started and backed it up with posts and tweets for a period of two weeks. We urged people to tell us where they were loitering. And we drew support from some of the more popular members who were already on the page.
End result? Over TWO WEEKS we crossed 3 MILLION impressions on Twitter alone. Generated over 1200 posts on Facebook. Got tweeted about over 1000 times with over 10,000 retweets. We even went viral for a day! Scroll magazine, the Times of India, Business Standard and a few others all did pieces and interviews with us. All it took was 5 colourful posts, 220 tweets, and no cash. Probably one of my most satisfying campaigns to date!
Situation: 'Why Loiter' is book written by three women, Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan. It focuses on the same single-minded premise that 'We can never guarantee safety (for women) in public spaces, however we must guarantee the right (for women) to be in those public spaces'. It’s a thought I found to be extremely powerful. However, apart from reading the book and sharing posts and commenting on them on the FB page, I believed that there was more untapped potential within.
Problem: While a lot of people subscribe to the idea of the page (and the book), it remains very passive. There is no active movement, no call to arms that cries out from this page.
Solution: A show of strength. Get people to talk about and support this idea that women can access any part of the city at any time and show that there are in fact women that do! We asked women to post picture of themselves loitering at any time of day, in any city, with the hashtag #whyloiter.
How did we begin? We needed the Why Loiter members and followers to be made aware of this initiative. So we did a series of posts to get started and backed it up with posts and tweets for a period of two weeks. We urged people to tell us where they were loitering. And we drew support from some of the more popular members who were already on the page.
End result? Over TWO WEEKS we crossed 3 MILLION impressions on Twitter alone. Generated over 1200 posts on Facebook. Got tweeted about over 1000 times with over 10,000 retweets. We even went viral for a day! Scroll magazine, the Times of India, Business Standard and a few others all did pieces and interviews with us. All it took was 5 colourful posts, 220 tweets, and no cash. Probably one of my most satisfying campaigns to date!
UPDATE: #whyloiter has now spread to Pakistan as well. As well as tier 3 cities in India.
Organic timeline deliveries of 2,582,322 and Reach of 1,950,434.(Normally these numbers are difficult to reach keeping in mind paid promotionsand brands fighting for reach of their content.)
The tweets put forth by the brand have got decent amount of retweets. 444 retweets from 161 tweets the brand had pushed.
This shows that users understand and connect with the message and that they deem it fit to be shared with their follower lists.
This shows that users understand and connect with the message and that they deem it fit to be shared with their follower lists.
Top handles retweeting/tweeting the #whyloiter message shows that the hashtag is getting picked up by handles that have a decent follower base.
That's me and a copy of my interview with the Times of India.
