Something very common happened recently on U.S. Airways Flight #544 from Vancouver to Phoenix. But what happened afterwards is something truly noteworthy. I left my very beloved iPad at seat 15A. Besides the iPad being a gadget many people would love to get their hands on, mine also contained sensitive information. That is when I went from a customer to a customer that needed service.

In a state of panic and with a tinge of hope, I sent this tweet:

Reaching out to US Airways on Twitter might, just might, get me my iPad back. Afterall, as a loyal Southwest Airlines customer and follower, I’ve seen customer service in action via Twitter. In fact, @SouthwestAir was actively assisting their customers throughout the day on that Sunday, while @USAirways had not sent a tweet in four days and hadn’t responded to a customer-service oriented tweet in five days.

What happened next was less expected. Hundreds of people started responding to my virtual distress signal. People were sending me phone numbers to US Airways and to airports customer service departments and giving me advice on how to get it back. Kind friends from Dallas (where the plane was headed next) volunteered to drive to the airport to retrieve my iPad. While dozens of others reached out to the @USAirways account on my behalf.

In the middle of this outpouring of generosity, came one tweet-in-shining armor under the handle: @This_JustIn_. And this Justin saved the day. A couple phone calls on my behalf and the news came in: my iPad would be riding with the captain back home to PHX where we would be happily (and gratefully) reunited.

There are many lessons to take from this story. For one, don’t leave your unlocked iPad on a plane. (It’s now password protected, by the way.) But one of the most valuable is the power of humans helping humans. There are huge opportunities (thanks to powerful communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook) for ‘titans of industry’ such as US Airways to humanize their brand. Imagine if @USAirways was listening-around-the-clock (since they do fly-around-the-clock) instead of only “listening during regular business hours” (as their bio line says). They not only had the opportunity to give amazing customer service but to do it in front of hundreds of people who were actively listening. People were literally rooting for them to succeed!

And the kicker? It was such an easy win for @USAirways. Why? For one, they had a Captain flying the plane who cared enough about his passengers to temporarily take custody of my iPad and return it to me personally at the Phoenix airport.

So where did they go wrong? They weren’t listening. It is no longer up to the brand where or how they want their customers to communicate.  Imagine if US Airways decided they didn’t want to use the phone as a communication device and stopped answering the phone for five days.

The Digital Royalty team developed and implemented a cross-platform social media campaign to deliver worldwide happiness leading up to the launch of Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh’s first book, Delivering Happiness. The book, ranked #1 on The New York Times Bestseller List just a week after its launch, demonstrates the power of focusing on company culture and customer service, which has led Zappos to $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, and make Fortune magazine’s annual “Best Companies to Work For” list.

The goal behind the cross-platform campaign, was to make use of the organic nature and reach of social media, to not only generate exposure for the book, but to also create a dialogue and a happiness movement that everyone can be a part of, no matter where in the world they are located. The movement is less about encouraging people to purchase the book, and more about the quest to deliver happiness through the path of profits, passion and purpose.

Below we’ve outlined the campaign’s concepts and results:

Livestream Events:

For eight weeks, we hosted a series of Delivering Happiness Virtual Happy Hours from a different city each week. The Happy Hour was broadcasted live on the Delivering Happiness Ustream and Justin.tv channels and was focused on one central theme–happiness….oh and not to mention, featured a baby kangaroo as a guest, drinking dice, karaoke… just to name a few.

Delivering Happiness Virtual Happy Hours were viewed by more than 300,000 people from around the world, and those viewers consumed 340,000 minutes of Delivering Happiness.

Blogger Program:

No matter what their platform or page traffic, bloggers were encouraged to apply on the Delivering Happiness website to become apart of the Delivering Happiness Blogger Program. If selected, each blogger received two advanced copy of the book – one for themselves, another to give away. In return, they would write a blog post/review of the book the week of the launch and anytime prior.

By the launch of Delivering Happiness, there were 800 total bloggers in the Blogger Program who helped promote and review the book.

Facebook:

Facebook was leveraged to encourage interaction among fans, as well as encourage those who had advanced copies of Delivering Happiness to post photos of their ‘Happy Place’ on the Facebook wall, whether that happy place is on the beach or from their own backyard. Two winners were selected for their photo submissions and announced on the day of launch. One winner’s photo was from the sandy beaches of San Sebastian, Spain, while the others Happy Place was with his college-ruled spiral notebook. Both won a free autographed copy of Delivering Happiness and a Delivering Happiness t-shirt.

Delivering Happiness received photo submissions from all over the World in the three weeks prior to the official launch of the book. The contest built a strong momentum, and despite the fact the contest has concluded, Delivering Happiness continues to receive photos from fans and followers.

Twitter:

Delivering Happiness partnered with the LIVESTRONG crew and set a goal to raise $33,333 by the launch of Delivering Happiness on June 7. Leveraging Twitter, we encouraged followers to join the Delivering Happiness and LIVESTRONG movement by making three promotional pushes leading up to the launch party.

Combined, Delivering Happiness and LIVESTRONG raised $50,000 to help support the organization. A base of more than 5 million Twitter followers was created by pulling togethere influential tweeters such as @LanceArmstrong, @Zappos, @LIVESTRONGCEO and @DigitalRoyalty, among others.

Meetup Everywhere and Sponsored Meetup Book Clubs:

Meetup.com recently launched a new platform, called Meetup Everywhere, which allows likeminded people from around the world to organize groups and events in their own community. To celebrate the launch of the Delivering Happiness book on June 7, people were encouraged to organize a Delivering Happiness Meetup group and join the Delivering Happiness team on June 7 to watch the livestream coverage of the launch party in New York. Each group was sent complimentary copies of the book, so that their groups could chat about the book and everything happy. We even had a Delivering Happiness group all the way in Ireland, Malaysia and Peru. 

A total of 133 Delivering Happiness Meetup groups joined the movement and hosted events from locations around the World. Each group watched live coverage of the launch party in New York via livestream. In addition, Delivering Happiness has sponsored 100 Book Clubs across the country on Meetup.com with access to more than 43,000 people.

DailyBooth:

DailyBooth was a great platform to encourage people to submit their Happy Place photos with the book, including people like Ashton Kutcher. More essentially, DailyBooth allowed author and Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh and the Delivering Happiness team to put a face and personality behind their names, by uploading photos of themselves.

Delivering Happiness currently has more than 6,600 followers on DailyBooth.

Delivering Happiness officially hit stands on Monday, June 7 and in it’s first day it was ranked #1 on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Not bad, considering none of us have ever launched a book before. What’s next on the agenda for Delivering Happiness? We’re hitting the road on a cross-country bus tour to promote the book and more importantly spread happiness throughout the country.

Digital Royalty came up with the idea to have readers tell us, via social media, where the happy bus should stop along the tour. Readers are encouraged to submit  a short video, photos or 100-words or less telling us why, the bus should stop in their city.

And fear not, you won’t miss a beat, because we will be live streaming along the way. The fun has just begun, so stay tuned for more details about the Delivering Happiness bus tour–BIG things to come.

It’s not often you see two competing brands intentionally position their consumers against each other and encourage a battle. We suggested this very idea to two of the brands we work with. They’re teaming up, challenging their fan bases (and each other) to have it out . . . for the greater good.

On Wednesday during the Chicago White Sox vs. Cleveland Indians baseball game, the two mascots Southpaw (@Southpaw) and Slider (@SliderTheMascot), are going head-to-head in a Mascot Rivalry and bringing together two opposing fan bases, virtually. We like to refer to this as a Virtual Pep Rally.

For each #GoWhiteSox and #GoTribe hashtags that are tweeted during the baseball game on Wednesday, the two clubs will donate $1 to Stand Up To Cancer (@SU2C). In addition, the losing team’s mascot with the least amount of hashtags by the last out of the game, will have to make good on the pre-determined wager.

Social media provides an environment, free from rules and politics, where partnerships can be formed and relationships can be strengthened. Even if those partnerships are between two opposing baseball teams.

Creating a special hashtag for an event provides a low-barrier for fans to participate virtually and show team spirit, by simply tweeting a designated hashtag. In this particular case, by tweeting their team’s hashtags, fans are contributing to cancer research. So, it’s a win-win for everyone involved (minus the bragging rights).

Quick Hashtag 101: Utilizing hashtags when hosting an event or announcing a new product, makes it both easier for users to find particular tweets with similar subject matter, but also allows organizers to effectively identify and track all tweets with the same keyword. #GoWhiteSox #GoTribe

Virtual events such as this example, are simple and low-maintenance ways to connect with your audience and increase fan engagement. Plus, a little competitive banter between two mascots is a great source of content. Proof: http://twitpic.com/1qygql and http://twitpic.com/1qz09v

To follow the heated battle on Wednesday at 11:05am CST:

Team Chicago White Sox:

Message to Fans, White Sox Official Twitter Account, Mascot, Tally: #GoWhiteSox

Team Cleveland Indians:

Message to Fans, Indians Official Twitter Account , Mascot Tally: #GoTribe

Missed the Virtual Pep Rally? Here’s a recap of all of the action:

Digital Royalty activated a twitter contest for client Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Nearly 1,000 fans showed up to participate.

Background: A fan had been tweeting under Shaquille O’Neal’s name on Twitter, yet because this was occurring prior to Twitter’s rollout of a verification process for celebrities, Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t publicly disprove the credibility of his impostor. Not only that, but if Shaquille O’Neal did create an account on Twitter, how would he humanize his mega-celebrity status in order to thrive in a social networking environment like Twitter?

Approach: Digital Royalty trained the basketball superstar, @The_Real_Shaq, how to tweet both strategically and tactically on his “ShaqBerry” (as he likes to call it) so that he could tweet himself; authentically. Most importantly, to turn followers of Shaquille into friends and brand loyalists, Digital Royalty developed the concept of Random Acts of Shaqness. The idea behind Random Acts of Shaqness was that not only would followers get to interact with a virtual friend in a tangible, real-world way, but followers of Shaquille would be rewarded for following Shaquille and for how closely they followed his tweets.

Results: Shaquille O’Neal is currently ranked among Twitter’s top 10 celebrity users according to WeFollow.com. In addition to having a well-established presence, 2.5 million followers strong, the threat of imposters have been abolished. Not only is Shaquille regarded as an early adopter, but his tweets often become news – a testament to his credibility in the space. Additionally, Shaquille is a groundbreaker for furthering the idea that celebrities on social networking sites can be active participants of a community—engaging, responding and meeting followers. And since pioneering Random Acts of Shaqness, the concept has been adopted by celebrities of all types on Twitter who include Ellen DeGeneres, UFC’s Dana White, Lenny Kravitz and Chad Ocho Cinco.

Background: Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a global mixed martial arts sports organization. Digital Royalty (dR) concepted and promoted various events leading up to UFC 104 in Los Angeles and UFC 106 in Las Vegas. Events that were scheduled leading up to UFC 104 and 106 events included twitter-centric scavenger hunts and autograph sessions with UFC fighters at Los Angeles-based and Las Vegas-based Kmarts.

Approach: Leading up to UFC 104 and UFC 106, a contest was launched exclusively on Twitter surrounding the series of in-store autograph sessions with UFC fighters. The challenge was to integrate two brands, UFC and Kmart, while raising interest and awareness for the contest/ticket giveaway. Digital Royalty facilitated the branding of the contest across multiple channels by establishing uniform hashtags, #UFC104Contest and #UFC106Contest. In addition, dR captured multiple videos, short interviews and photos for distribution to a base of more than 1.9 million individuals.

Results: More than 1,900,000 direct unique impressions were made in less than a week. Along with tweets co-branded with #UFC104Contest and #UFC106Contest hashtags and Kmart mentions, videos and photos were distributed by both UFC and Kmart networks. A total of two thousand fans showed up at Kmart as a result of the Twitter contest. Behind-the-scenes videos were hyper syndicated across the UFC digital universe reaching millions on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In addition, the winner of the UFC 104 Contest was able to locate UFC representatives, solely through directional tweets, in five seconds to claim his ticket prize.

Background: In October 2009, professional golfer Bubba Watson entered into a social media partnership with the nation’s largest independent tire distributor, Discount Tire. The agreement was to support one another over the two-week timeframe of the partnership exclusively on social media channels that included Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It also included a physical visit by Bubba Watson to a Discount Tire location.

Approach: The preliminary stages of the partnership included Digital Royalty naturally integrating both brand’s respective social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Next steps involved a viral video shoot, a Tweet-up ticket giveaway at a Discount Tire location, an autograph session at a golf tournament solely promoted through social media outlets, a Twitter based Q-and-A session and an online autographed card given away by both parties via social channels.

Results: With isolation of the two-week partnership, Digital Royalty was able to measure and compare Discount Tire’s audience share and fan engagement on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, to growth in weeks leading up to and following the partnership. Highlights of the case study included across-the-board ecosystem growth of Discount Tire and Bubba Watson’s respective ecosystems, positive sentiment increases, tapping of new audiences and interconnectivity represented in the percent-share of one another’s ecosystem.

Background: The Chicago White Sox organization wanted to set up a meet-and-greet with their fans and followers before the end of the 2009 MLB season. The result was that on September 18, 2009, Cellular Field in Chicago played host to the first official White Sox tweetup.

Approach: Amy Martin, Digital Royalty founder, drew from previous experience as creator and host of the Phoenix Suns first tweetup, as well as fan feedback to hone-in on what elements were necessary to make the one-day event a success. The 31-dollar event took place at a cordoned-off portion of an outfield patio where twitterers enjoyed all-you-can-eat buffet, a fan-designed tweetup t-shirt, a baseball game and time to mingle with the White Sox VP of Communication, Director of PR, mascot and baseball legend Ron Kittle.

Results: A contest for the design of t-shirt for the event was not only exclusively launched on Twitter, but also produced a follower-designed t-shirt for the event. Key takeaways were that tweetup attendees met and took photos with key figures behind all of the White Sox accounts, as well as supplied the vast majority of content that originated from the event. User-generated content was then hyper-syndicated by Digital Royalty across a multitude of channels. All White Sox account experienced a substantial increase in followers, but of particular interest was that Southpaw, the White Sox mascot who had just joined twitter, garnered 1,000 new friends (followers) during this timeframe.

Background: During the annual UFC Summit in Las Vegas, the UFC encouraged all of its fighters to setup accounts on Twitter. The result was not only that hundreds of UFC, TUF and WEC fighters were now on Twitter, but that the UFC had to identify each fighter, verify the authenticity of each account and inform the public of each fighter account. The challenge for the UFC essentially became the following: how do we show the credibility of authentic fighter accounts in lue of lengthy, official verification and publicize these accounts to fans?

Approach: Although Digital Royalty was in the process of having all fighter accounts verified by Twitter, we needed a way to have all fighter accounts that had been internally verified, authenticated for the general public – and quickly. The answer was to not only build a master list of UFC fighters on Twitter, but create this list on official UFC accounts (i.e. @DanaWhite and @UFC) and distribute the information.

Results: Forty-seven fighter accounts are now on the UFC Twitter list, and more than 200 non-UFC accounts on Twitter have in turn followed the “fighters” list.  Having the official UFC Twitter account, @UFC, distribute the list via Twitter, added instant credibility to fighter accounts that before had struggled with imposter accounts and a lack of uniformity. One such fighter account that served as a testament to this success was Frank Mir, one of the UFC’s most well known fighters. Frank’s brand new official account, @TheFrankMir, was hard to distinguish from seven imposter accounts. But after @UFC publicized the ‘fighter list’, Frank Mir’s real account jumped from four followers, to 2,600 in less than 12 hours.