Selling over 2.1 million units within two weeks of launch, the PlayStation 4 (PS4) has been the most successful platform launch ever for the brand and the largest console launch ever (according to DFC Intelligence). Social media was an integral part of the launch strategy from the initial unveiling through the worldwide launch event in November 2013. The social media team at PlayStation leveraged their gaming authenticity and understanding of gaming culture on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and the PlayStation.Blog to publish breaking news related to upcoming games and PS4, original interviews, development-focused Blog posts from guest developers and more to keep gamers fed with the latest knowledge – free of spin or marketing language. Social media engagement, and the excitement and conversations it drove among fans, has helped contribute to PS4’s powerful launch. Within the first 24 hours after launch, the PS4 sold more than one million units in the U.S. and Canada. Two weeks later, when the console launched in Europe and Latin America, sales rose above 2.1 million and the PS4 earned the title of fastest selling console ever in the United Kingdom. To date, the PS4 has sold more than 4.2 million units. Selling over 2.1 million units within two weeks of launch, the PlayStation 4 (PS4) has been the most successful platform launch ever for the brand and the largest console launch ever (according to DFC Intelligence). Social media was an integral part of the launch strategy from the initial unveiling through the worldwide launch event in November 2013. The social media team at PlayStation leveraged their gaming authenticity and understanding of gaming culture on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and the PlayStation.Blog to publish breaking news related to upcoming games and PS4, original interviews, development-focused Blog posts from guest developers and more to keep gamers fed with the latest knowledge – free of spin or marketing language. To kick off the PS4 launch, the PlayStation team released a PS4 announcement teaser video on YouTube, which went viral with more than 7.66 million views. As a follow up, PlayStation released the official PS4 announcement video on February 20, 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7QhUL8NUK4), which has more than 31 million views to date. Fast-forward to E3 in June 2013, when PlayStation released its Greatness Awaits brand campaign following the well-received press conference with the following trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdW1OuZ1U0), which has nearly 13 million views as of January 2014. Another viral campaign that hit during E3 was the short and quirky “Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA), which launched during the PS4 announcement at PlayStation’s E3 press conference and drove over eight million views in the first day. As PS4 neared its November 15, 2013 launch, PlayStation kicked off the second part of the Greatness Awaits campaign by releasing the official PS4 Perfect Day commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0d9d-cdxhk), which has more than 13 million views as of January 2014. The PlayStation subscriber base grew by 1.6M and drove more than 5.6M engagements in 2013. In addition to the Greatness Awaits video on YouTube, PlayStation utilized the platform to by posting an interactive video experience for the PS4. The Greatness Awaits campaign allowed fans engage directly with the video by clicking to discover ‘easter eggs’ hidden throughout the video. PlayStation’s Twitter presence @PlayStation (www.twitter.com/PlayStation) has grown steadily since its launch in 2007 and grew 125% within the span of 2013. With approximately 3.5 million followers, the feed became a valuable tool for gamers to learn the latest information as PS4’s launch drew closer. Twitter was used to communicate and spread information to the gaming community, The social media team at PlayStation took an active role in monitoring Twitter during the launch activities of the PS4, and took time to answer fan questions, retweet fan comments that brought value to other gamers, and curated Twitter questions for an official PS4 FAQ as well as crowdsourced game-focused interviews. The PS4 launch hashtags (#PS4, #GreatnessAwaits, #PS4Share, #PS4Live, #4ThePlayers, #PerfectDay) drew a total of 945,000 mentions by fans in November 2013 alone, , trending in global and US regions. The PlayStation Twitter handle sent over 150 tweets, all carefully vetted and intended to provide value to gamers, during the PS4 launch in November 2013 and resulted in over 79,000 retweets from fans across the world. With 36 million fans on Facebook (www.facebook.com/PlayStation), PlayStation’s strategy was a “best of the best" content curation for late-breaking PS4 information, videos and pictures. The social media team at PlayStation created multiple photo albums on Facebook for the PS4 launch, with pictures of the actual console, photos from events and images from PS4 games. The albums were used to interact with fans that could not attend launch events and to give them a glimpse of what to expect from the console. PlayStation posted 44 PS4-related posts on its brand page during the launch period. These posts reached 75.4 million Facebook users, 106 million impressions, engaged in 708,798 total fan interactions, and on average, each post received over 16,000 engagements from Facebook fans. The PlayStation.Blog (http://blog.us.playstation.com/) was created in 2007 to increase engagement with gamers and cover the gaming scene with a laser focus on breaking news that relates to PlayStation, whether internal or external to the brand. PlayStation.Blog has been the largest, most successful and most-read corporate blog in the entertainment industry and the number one game console blog, according to Technorati. In calendar year 2013 alone, there were more than 17 million unique visitors to the PlayStation.Blog. With the PS4 launch, the team set out to capture all news, events and hands-on impressions of upcoming games, integrating Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as ways to tell a deeper story and drive the most compelling content. Blog posts included an unboxing video of the PS4 and behind-the-scenes images from the PS4 launch event in New York, while longer-form content included posts like a comprehensive and in-depth PS4 FAQ article that received more than 900,000 unique visitors in its first several days as well as extensive media pickup. During the PS4 launch, the PlayStation.Blog received 2.65 million unique visitors and 7.78 million page views. Social media engagement, and the excitement and conversations it drove among fans, has helped contribute to PS4’s powerful launch. Within the first 24 hours after launch, the PS4 sold more than one million units in the U.S. and Canada. Two weeks later, when the console launched in Europe and Latin America, sales rose above 2.1 million and the PS4 earned the title of fastest selling console ever in the United Kingdom. To date, the PS4 has sold more than 4.2 million units.
