#1917LIVE: WHAT IF TWITTER EXISTED 100 YEARS AGO?

Title#1917LIVE: WHAT IF TWITTER EXISTED 100 YEARS AGO?
BrandRT
Product/ServiceHISTORY RE-ENACTMENT SOCIAL MEDIA PROJECT
Category A06. Media & Publications
Entrant RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Idea Creation RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Media Placement RT Moscow, RUSSIA
PR RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Production RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Credits
Name Company Position
Kirill Karnovich-Valua RT Deputy Editor-In-Chief, Creative and Innovations Director
Gleb Burashov RT Social media
Timur Zolotoev RT Head of Social Media
Revaz Todua RT Web-designer
Yaroslav Yarolavov RT Web-designer
Boris Gorlov RT Head of Creative dept.
Victoria Milovanova RT Creative dept., producer
Alexander Skryabin RT Director

The Campaign

We attempted to create the first-ever monumental social media role-play involving dozens of characters - their lines are short 140-digit messages and the stage is Twitter. We live with and through gadgets, social media and mobile apps. The challenge behind our creative idea is to identify how innovative educational processes and projects can resonate with this new model of thinking. So we decided to create a large-scale Twitter role-play that re-enacts history, in real time. #1917LIVE is an experimental project that tells the story of the Russian Revolution through real-time tweeting from a network of linked accounts. The key element to the project is #1917CROWD – a community hashtag which allows anyone to create its own authentic account of that period and engage with the events of 100 years ago. #1917LIVE is endorsed bysuch respected writers as renowned British historian Helen Rappaport and best-selling author Paulo Coelho.

Creative Execution

• Real-time live tweeting which creates a highly engaging experience – our audience gets a chance to follow and interact with historic figures themselves almost like via digital time machine, take part in polls, Q&As and many more. • #1917CROWD - social community element which allows anyone to join the role-play with personal historically authentic account of that time • series of online teasers and promos filmed in authentic locations and historic entourage; • Series of unique sketches filmed VR/360 format • online map under #LeninTracker hashtag which allowed to follow Vladimir Lenin’s 7-day-trip from Switzerland to Russia in real time • collaborations with historians such as renowned British author Helen Rappaport who is running one of the accounts, writers (Paulo Coelho tweeting for Mata Hari), artists (French painter Alexandra Lopatic tweeting for Prokudin-Gorsky) • 31/12/2016-31/12/2017 • Mostly Twitter. But also Periscope, Facebook, YouTube and special website http://1917.rt.com

After 8 month running (January-September 2017), the accounts have gained over 190,000 followers combined. More than 170,000 tweets used the hashtag #1917LIVE generating over 38 million impressions. Project-related videos generated 600,000+ video views on different social media platforms. #1917LIVE is already being followed by media influencers, reporters, politicians, researchers and history enthusiasts. Journalists from different global media such as The Guardian, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, France 24 are retweeting the revolution. The project received media coverage in 10+ languages (Huffington Post, El Pais, La Stampa and others).

Main story telling is created by a team of journalists and researches. All tweets are accurately sourced through memoirs, diaries, letters, newspapers of that time. Our team is constantly working with different archives, photo and video storages to acquire rights for content. #1917LIVE enjoys a truly special place with educators: professors, teachers, students, post-grads and generally history buffs. Scholars at universities such as Oxford, Georgetown, Cardiff, British Columbia are following the project. Some professors are even using it for teaching Russian history. We use all possible tools, formats and features the Twitter platform can offer. All major events are tweeted as ‘Breaking News’ updates; event coverage is consolidated in Twitter Moments; key historical characters are interviewed by The Russian Telegraph in real time and every Twitter user has a chance to submit their own question to (and be answered by) Lenin or the Tsar themselves.