Tara Hubner | Social media and digital marketing

Mobile and Social Campaigns

Pliny the Elder’s 24 Hours of Tweets

On August 24, 2012, exactly 1,933 years after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the Museum gave people the unique opportunity to relive the eruption, hour-by-hour, from the eyes of Pliny the Elder. @Elder_Pliny’s tweets were linked to an interactive website and map that included photos, information and more about Pliny’s wherabouts during those fateful hours. The Pliny twitter account gained almost 5,000 followers in 24 hours, and was covered by FOX News, NBC and the Huffington Post. This campaign was also nominated for a 2013 Webby Award.

View details »

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Landing Tweetup

On August 5, 2012, Lockheed Martin and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science co-hosted a Tweetup to share the experience of a historic moment in space exploration: NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission landing the “mega-rover” Curiosity on the surface of Mars. Between the panel discussions and the landing, the Tweetup crew got some exclusive discussion time with astronaut Bruce McCandless.

View details »

My Pet Rex

This mobile app was designed to promote a temporary exhibition at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science called T. Rex Encounter. One of the key messages for the campaign was to communicate the fact that the exhibition had life-like robotic dinosaurs. With that in mind, we opted to create an augmented reality app that allowed users to scan an advertisement that ran in Westword Magazine for a chance to “own a pet T. rex that gives away a free ticket to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.” The app had over 10,000 combined downloads in the Android Market and Apple Store.

Genghis Khan Twitter Profile

In 2009, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science hosted an exhibition called Genghis Khan. Before it came to the Museum, we did market research to learn what our visitors knew and thought about the most powerful man of his time. What we found out is that we had a huge awareness barrier to overcome before the visitor even walked through our doors (i.e. Genghis Khan is that tiger from the Jungle Book, right?). As an awareness tactic for the man and the exhibition, we chose to create a Twitter profile that was Genghis Khan personified. Throughout the run of the exhibition, @Genghis_K tweeted excerpts and words of wisdom from The Great Yasa–his laws and guidelines for personal behavior. The tweets included links to the web site that promoted the exhibition.

View details »

Hidden Fossil Cast Contest

This idea was to promote an exhibition called T. Rex Encounter, and it played off of our audiences’ love for geocaching. Using Facebook and Twitter as a way to promote the contest and the coordinates, each week for four weeks we hid fossil casts made from our own collections in and around the Denver metro area. The first person to locate the fossil cast was awarded a Museum membership and their picture was posted on Facebook.

View details »

Sci-Fi Film Series T-Shirt Design Contest

In 2011, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science partnered with the Denver Film Society to present the Sci-Fi Film Series. In an effort to promote the series, as well as create community around a new product, we launched a t-shirt design contest. From the original 25 entries, we selected the top 5 designs and posted them on the Museum’s Facebook page. Our fans voted for their favorite by using the “like” button or by leaving a comment. The design with the biggest following was selected for printing.

View details »

Snowy the Mammoth

In October 2010, a bulldozer operator working near a Colorado ski area uncovered the tusk of a young female mammoth. Over the next 10 months, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science conducted its largest-ever fossil excavation, yielding a treasure trove of well-preserved Ice Age fossils. Museum crews uncovered 5,000 bones of 41 kinds of Ice Age animals, including mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths, camels, deer, horses, and giant bison. The preserved series of Ice Age fossil ecosystems is one of the most significant fossil discoveries ever made in Colorado. A campaign known as The Snowmastodon Project was created to promote and raise money for the science and education surrounding the discovery. One of the tactics used to engage people in the project was to create a Facebook page for the original mammoth fossil. A contest was held to give her a name, and the public chose “Snowy” after the town of Snowmass Village where she was found. She currently has over 2,800 friends.

View details »

T. Rex Encounter Tweetup

We invited 30 of our Twitter followers to an exclusive tour of the T. Rex Encounter exhibition and our fossil collection with curator of vertebrate paleontology, Joe Sertich. The only “payment” required was to bring their phones and tweet during the tour using #DMNStweetup. Their enthusiasm caused #DMNStweetup to be #1 trending topic in Denver.

View details »