The Challenge: Harvard Square is arguably the most iconic neighborhood/square in all of Greater Boston, generating over 8 million people a year. The square is host to 350+ businesses all within a ¼ square mile of each other, it’s the third best retail market in the state, and is considered a cultural mecca from those far and wide. The Harvard Square Business Association noticed on the social media and digital influencer front, they were not as sought-after as areas like the Seaport, South Boston, Arsenal Yards and Fort Point for shopping, dining and entertainment. They decided they needed to ramp up those efforts to get twenty-somethings looking at Harvard Square as the place to visit. As a result of DPA’s success working with the Art of Banksy exhibit and Bonde Fine Wine Shop in Harvard square, they looked to DPA for help.
The Approach: DPA took an aggressive two-fold approach including taking our ongoing curated list of digital influencers and offering them chances to visit select places for ‘day in the life’ content, and run point on their social media channels – IG and TikTok – setting up a cadence and content strategy we know to maximize engagement, followers and interest in physically visiting the square.
Results: Strong across the board. Influencers we reached out to not only were shocked about what the square had to offer, but overjoyed with their experiences, most of which never visited before. Engagement and ‘likes’ far exceeded expectations, 12x of the standard engagement and likes to be exact, and local businesses have heard from customers who say they recently started following the accounts or noticed their favorite influencer recently visited. And the icing on the cake thus far into our ongoing year-long campaign – DPA secured the ever-elusive blue checkmark to validate the Harvard Square Instagram page, making it the official page of Harvard Square.
