Title	#ROMANOVS100: 4,000 PHOTOS. 4 SOCIAL NETWORKS. 1 FAMILY.
Brand	RT
Product/Service	DOCUMENTARY SOCIAL MEDIA PROJECT #ROMANOVS100
Category	B10. Use of Social Platforms
Entrant	RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Idea Creation	RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Media Placement	RT Moscow, RUSSIA
PR	RT Moscow, RUSSIA
Production	RT Moscow, RUSSIA

Name	Company	Position
Kirill Karnovich-Valua	RT	Creative Producer
Revaz Todua	RT	Designer
Gleb Burashov	RT	Producer
Elena Medvedeva	RT	Producer
Eldar Salamov	RT	Producer
Ania Fedorova	RT	Producer
Ivan Fursov	RT	Producer
Ivor Crotty	RT	Producer
Lilly Kazakova	RT	Producer
Margo Tskhovrebova	RT	Producer
Peter Nalitch	Peter Nalitch's musical collective	Musician
Helen Rappaport	Helen Rappaport	Historical Consultant
Marina Amaral	RT	Artist
Denis Semyonov	Great Gonzo Studio	Artist
Aleksandr Skryabin	RT	Director
Ilya Grachev	RT	Director of photography
Victoria Milovanova	RT	Producer

Why is this work relevant for Media?

#Romanovs100 is a comprehensive cross-platform social media project unveiling 4,000 photographs from a unique collection preserved by the Russian State Archive. This vast family chronicle is a detailed first-hand witness account of the early 20th century - the part of the Russian history that was kept in the dark during the Soviet rule. Accounts on four social networks review the last decades of the Russian Empire, seen through the lenses of the Romanovs’ cameras. Each account showcases its own narrative, format and content. By following the accounts on all platforms the audience “assemble” what we call an online documentary “photo-puzzle”.

Background

On July 17, 1918, former Tsar, Nicholas Romanov, his wife and five children were brutally executed by the Bolsheviks. To pay tribute to the family, we worked on a large set of visual data for a transmedia storytelling experience that pieces out the big picture of a "lost Russia". Romanovs100 is the story of the Empire’s last royal family through thousands of photographs they took themselves — published across 4 social networks, with accounts on each network showcasing their own narrative, format and content. We hosted a comprehensive photo-story depicting the last decades of Imperial Russia over the centenary of the last 100 days of the Romanov family on dedicated accounts - YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Objectives: - create innovative educational social media storytelling - educate and inspire our audiences to learn history - increase brand awareness

Describe the creative idea/insights

The Romanovs, Russia’s last royal family, were photography pioneers. They owned and made regular use of Kodak’s first portables, capturing almost every meaningful event of their lives. Together with State Archive specialists, we gathered a comprehensive collection of family images covering two decades, culminating in 1917. Every published photograph was thoroughly researched to create platform-specific storytelling. For each post, the team studied dozens of different sources ranging from personal diaries and letters by Nicholas II himself, to memoirs by his contemporaries and extensive works by Russian and foreign historians. #Romanovs100 is a research into history through the visual language of photography combined with the digital reality of social media. Our work to digitise and analyse a massive trove of data opened Nicholas II, his family and “lost” Russia from a new, deeply human perspective, creating a totally new way for storytelling centred around visual data.

Describe the strategy

Our team's objective is to demonstrate how interactive educational projects can resonate with "new generations" fully-adapted to gadgets and a "news feed mentality"; to highlight how innovative storytelling can help young people engage with history. The big challenge was to keep the narrative unique and original for every platform - considering the specifics of every particular social media platform the team thoroughly selected and distributed content between YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The team spent months gathering a data trove of digital images and then tagging every photo. As a result, a tag-cloud of some 200 markers was created to navigate the content archive via a digital asset management platform. Story planning started at the early stages of data curation - every image needed a story behind it. To create narratives for social media posts, we extensively used dozens of different sources.

Describe the execution

During 100 days 4 social media networks (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) hosted a comprehensive photo-story review depicting the last decades of Imperial Russia. Each platform boasted unique content and we arranged the storytelling as follows: - 100-year-old shots turned into interactive 180-degree panoramas on Facebook - short digital documentary-style videos on YouTube - real-time blog-posts by historical characters on Twitter - POV Instagram perspective by the Romanov's dog - Russian spaniel Joy - World's first-ever digital colorization contest judged by renowned artist Marina Amaral - Twitter account run by one of the most popular writers on the Romanov family - British historian Dr. Helen Rappaport - Music video combining old photos & VR Animation in Quill with Cinema and After Effects - Video teasers reconstructing several of the Romanovs' images, in-motion - filmed on retro 8mm & 16mm cameras with large-scale production and authentic stage props.

List the results

#Romanovs100 had a remarkable impact across social media. The project generated over 25 million impressions & gathered around 55,000 fans & followers combined. Social media posts generated over 1 million engagements. Our short documentary videos on Facebook and YouTube gained 1+ million video views with over half-a-million minutes of watch-time. #Romanovs100 became the key hashtag during the centenary of the Romanovs' death on Twitter worldwide with the project's unique tag featured in tweets by museums, history magazines, publishers, historians, students and educators. The project received global media coverage, featuring in The History Extra magazine, BBC News Hour, Tatler, Sky News, Daily Mail, and more. #Romanovs100 has been selected to showcase at one of the world’s biggest educational festivals - SXSW EDU 2019 in Austin, Texas. The project is also included in the official program of ASU GSV X summit in San Diego accelerating innovation in education.