Our goal was to increase real-time engagement with the 17,000+ people in attendance at GearFest. The social wall was a huge success. People seemed to really enjoy it and watched it frequently to see their posts being displayed. It definitely added to the excitement and made people more engaged during the day. We’re hoping that it will help spark interest for future events as well.

Running is very emotional. This is why we have been using Walls.io social walls for years. It’s easy to get runners to post their experiences from races and training sessions on social media and share these moments with others. This integration of UGC creates a closer connection between the runners, us and our race.

Because our target audience is highly social and likely to be on multiple social media platforms, we thought that a social wall really suited our needs. So we launched the hashtag #MaritimeWomenPhotoShare and to participate, participants could either use the hashtag on Twitter or Instagram or simply submit their photos using an email address we created for that purpose. And with the wall, it created this mosaic of working maritime women which was really empowering and inspiring, and more and more women joined.

Because we wanted to display the wide range of hometowns and fields of study, our thoughts naturally drifted to creating a map of the world with locations marked by posts and tweets. For the campaign, the Walls.io map and wall are being embedded into our Welcome site, a kind of portal for new students to orient them to campus, life in Ann Arbor, and the many resources available to them. Students are directed to this site when they receive their offer of admission, to help inform their decision-making.

We wanted full control; to be able to present the different happenings around the zoo, as well as guest engagement and guest content. So we did a lot of research and found Walls.io. And it’s turned out to be absolutely everything I wanted and more.

It was a big wall, probably 12 feet tall. I should have had somebody stand next to it for the photo! And it was pretty cool. We set it up right by the registration area. We also had a booth there where participants could redeem the tickets they received for participating in sessions and exchange them for t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc. So it was a place where we got lots of traffic, and people would walk by and see the wall. And then, of course, that would encourage them to post more pictures.