People crossing my walk would have drawn me in a thoughtful but fast exposure, with a comics bubble over me showing my individual brain storming; actually it was much more than a storm, I can also see thunders and lightning surrounding my unconscious mind.

Afterwards I was waiting for the bus in Hyde Park, wondering “Am I nuts?  Will I reach 50 Facebook fans? Who will be so mad to tweet “give @rodmanalbe a chance?”.

I got on the bus, got home and stopped thinking and started working. A week after, I was sitting on a comfortable couch at Amnesia, in Millers Point, waiting to be interviewed.

It has been a great, amazing, motivating and exciting week. My enthusiasm has been arising day after day.

I am happy with myself, with the work I did.

But sometimes happiness and satisfaction do not match numbers.

I think they do, at this time.

In one week (from start of the campaign to the interview with Amnesia) :

• 1,829 Blog visits
• 627 Facebook Page Fans
• 415 Unique Friends took a picture holding the sign
• 4,870 Facebook Fan Page Views
• 1,810 Facebook Fan Page Unique Views
• 189 @rodmanalbe mentions on Twitter
• 60 “rodmanalbe” + “chance” or “amnesia” mentions
• +99: followers increase
• 851 Youtube Channel Views
• 546 Click Throughs from Twitter
• 2,432 Flickr channel views

I’d have never expected these numbers. Never. They are simply astonishing.

I remember one of my best friends in Sydney telling me: “Man, 300 Facebook fans, can you believe it?”;

“No mate, I am just incredulous. “

And now, 726 people already became fans of my campaign.

Thank you all.

Thank you all. And again. And again.

A never ending “Thank you all” :)

Analysing the result of the campaign, I could not ignore the fact that my Fans and Supporters are divided both from a Geo-Location and Social Media perspective.

Interestingly enough, my Australian and North American supporters are mostly associated with Twitter, while the European ones only connected through Facebook.

In fact, more than 85% of people mentioning @rodmanalbe and retweeting my Tweets are based in Australia, US or Canada; on the contrary 84% of my Facebook Fans are European (and, 8% of them are South American).

This net division is easily understandable considering how slowly Twitter is getting adopted in Europe, compared to its massive presence in US, for example. No wonder, then, that most of my friends in Europe, during my holidays there, were looking at me in a strange way every time I mentioned Twitter.

“What’s Twitter?” was the most frequently asked question; at the same time, the ones who had heard about it told me that they could not see any added value in it and they’d rather keep on using Facebook.

On the contrary, most of the people I met in Sydney have a Twitter account and they are simply in love with it.

Going ahead with my analysis, I am happy with the fact that visits to the blog have not dropped down after the first post, maintaining an excellent daily average (approximately 150 page visits per day).

Twitter has been the main referrer: 100+ people clicked on it to get to my blog.

Furthermore, my nickname @rodmanalbe has been mentioned 189 times in a single week; amongst these mentions,”@ammesiafish” or “chance” have surrounded it 60+ times. I reckon this statistic is fundamental to explain the success of the campaign.

Lastly, thanks to all these mentions, I reached 40,000+ potential users on the first week of the campaign.

Looking at Facebook data, I was amazed with the daily fan increase (thank you, word of mouth!) , which also corresponded to a huge media plays increase. (pictures uploads, picture views, wall posts, pictures likes and comments, etc.).

I have been engaging with fans, believing that my presence was advantageous and mandatory. I have also established a point of contact that was aimed to consistently create, contribute, and reinforce service and value to my fans.

Finally, you can take a look at two charts extracted from HootSuite: all the ten most popular (most clicked) Tweets are related to “all we are saying is give @rodmanalbe a chance” campaign.

The most popular is the one mentioning @amnesiafish, while the other ones refer to related pictures, paste-ups or the tweet announcing the first interview with Amnesia

Oh, I was almost forgetting: I was asked which was the biggest difficulty I had to face during the course of the campaign.

Tough question, easy answer: to educate my Italian friends, in regards to Social Media tools.

I received heaps of Facebook private messages, asking me for help! “Albe, how can I like your page? How can I upload a picture? How can I suggest your page to my friends?” and so on.

After having replied the first ten PMs, I felt a bit bored and decided to create a tutorial: it took me more than three hours to finish it, but it has been judged as very helpful and I reckon it also boosted my Facebook statistics.

You can find a few charts summarising the campaign results below, I hope you will enjoy them.

Alberto Sbabo

[Data Source for Twitter charts: Analyticly by PeopleBrowsr]

• 425 people liked my Facebook Fan Page.
• 275 unique people took a picture holding an “all we are saying is give @rodmanalbe a chance” sign
• 3 videos uploaded on Youtube: introduction [in English] + Tutorial/Thank you message [in Italian], 748 views
• 1,500 blog views so far
• heaps of mentions on Twitter
• heaps of “great idea, mate”, “congratulations!”, “I’d give you a job if I could!”, “high-fives!”
• a few criticisms, which I appreciated for the honesty and because I reckon they will help me improving my knowledge and skills. You can always learn from mistakes, right?

Given that, I am having fun, a lot of fun.
I am doing what I love to do, and it fills me with joy!
I know it won’t be easy, in fact it’s going to be tough!
I know two days have been blocked out for interviews at Amnesia: wow!
It looks like the WWE Royal Rumble wrestling event, ah ah!
But, as for my last University exams, I’d love to quote BoB Kelso in a Scrubs’ episode, season 7: “nothing in this world that’s worth having comes easy“.
Thank you all,

Alberto Sbabo

All we are saying is give @rodmanalbe a chance!

♫ Come on, everybody, sing it! ♫

Hi all, and thanks for coming over! Welcome to my virtual space!

My name is Alberto Sbabo, I am a 27year-old Italian guy from Verona [the city of Romeo and Juliet!] and all I want is a chance!

What kind of chance? Well, it’s easier than what it may seem: I wanna work in Social Media in Sydney!

Considering the fact that the contract with my current company expires in one and a half months, I have been looking for a job for the last two months.

Many interviews, and, unfortunately, I have always been told: “Your experiences and skills are awesome, but…Working Holiday Visa? Mmmm…”

Can you imagine this big fella wandering alone on the Pyrmont Bridge wondering why nobody wants to give him a chance?

“Alberto, stop complaining and act!” my dad used to say, and here I am!

Differentiation is the way. Uniqueness. A rare diamond.

I have sent my resume to Amnesia Razorfish and Karalee Evans today: they are looking for a Social Media Coordinator!

My dream job!

I’ve spent the whole day thinking and thinking and thinking: I hope this website, and the integrated social media campaign behind it, will convince them that I am worth it, that they should invite me to their offices in Sydney and interview me.

♫ All we are saying is give @rodmanalbe a chance! ♫

p.s. Amnesia’s one of the best agencies in the world, and I would love to work with them. But if you are looking for a social media coordinator/manager/account manager, I am your man! Take a look at my resume and email me!

Alberto Sbabo