Twitter Conversation Marketing: A Star Wars Story

The social network that is arguably best built for open, one-to-one communication and engagement is Twitter. It allows brands to build relationships with customers and people to connect with each other.

That communication factor can also be a fantastic tactic for promotion.

Consider Star Wars. Their Twitter account has 3.83 million followers, and they tweet things like updates, quizzes for followers, fan art, behind the scenes shots and more, including replying to people. But this is where they and their parent company Disney go the extra yard.

Let's take a look at a Twitter interaction that took place:

• A fan tweets about watching a show where the Star Wars cast met The Muppets.
   

• Two days later, their local steakhouse, Niemerg's Steakhouse, engages them to ask what they enjoyed most about it.
   

• Then, Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, with 2.53 million followers, jumps in and says that romancing The Muppets character Miss Piggy was his.
   

• Miss Piggy uses her own character account with 148k followers to respond to Mark Hamill in her own voice and complain while @ tagging Star Wars.
   

• Star Wars responds to Miss Piggy from their account, telling her that she is incorrect.
   

• Miss Piggy replies back to Star Wars to pitch a plot idea, and tags Star Wars: The Last Jedi director, Rian Johnson.
   

• Star Wars replies to Miss Piggy with a gif taken from a movie scene, rejecting her.
   

• Rian Johnson addresses his concerns about the idea to Miss Piggy.

There are a couple of reasons why this is great show of Twitter promotion.

First, this isn't just a typical content or promoted tweet by Disney. This conversation actually gets rolling by someone affiliated with Disney's Star Wars franchise, actor Mark Hamill, casually engaging a fan on Twitter.

Second is the significance of Miss Piggy's entrance into the conversation. Miss Piggy of The Muppets, actually has her own Twitter account that gets maintained in the character's persona as if she were a real person. The Muppets, and not by coincidence, is another franchise owned by none other than Disney.

This conversation, whether planned out or not, appears to be very natural and native, and includes huge accounts that are affiliated with the Star Wars franchise and Disney. By having them interact with each other, the likelihood of the conversation being seen by each account's followers increases without anything looking like an advertisement, which is why there are hundreds liking each tweet.

Finally, the timing. Mark Hamill's initial response that triggers the high profile conversation happens only a few hours after Disney released it's first full length trailer for their new movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story. A perfect way to get conversations surrounding Star Wars going.

Well done.