5 Instagram Users Helped Propel ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ To $170 Million Box Office Success

While this arrived sounding like a big ‘ol self-promotional press release — they all are, actually — our interest was sparked by this work from Instagram influencer marketing firm, theAmplify.

The company makes a technology called SharedRank which is an algorithm that provides strategic analytics and advanced audience targeting.

Working with 20th Century Fox to promote their recent film, The Fault in Our Stars. In advance of the film’s release date, theAmplify selected five key influencers within its entertainment affinity to attend a screening of the film.

The influencers were selected based on their likelihood to have an affinity for the film and, after viewing the film chose — we are told — to organically share their experience.

Though theAmplify won’t share the identities of its influencers — for obvious reasons — it’s clear the overall talk about the film on Instagram is huge. One movie-related hashtag encompassed 1.6 million posts, while another accounted for 20K posts, at the time of publication.

According to theAmplify, from the five Instagram influencers, the campaign saw more than 350,000 engagements on Instagram, through a combination of likes and comments, ultimately reaching a claimed 16 million people. To-date the film has grossed nearly $170 million at the worldwide box office.

Of the campaign and the technology behind it, theAmplify CEO Justin Rezvani said, “As the first and only Instagram marketing firm to use technology to understand key influencers, we were able to conduct extensive analysis in selecting the best influencers to reach the most desired audience of this film. By incorporating data-driven research and a native approach to marketing on Instagram, we were able to make true connections between the film and moviegoers, which in the end moved the needle in box office ticket sales.”

Now that we have that mind-numbing PR speak out of the way, let’s focus on what was  really important here.

20th Century Fox leveraged an existing social media platform by tapping just 5 ideal influencer candidates which netted the film 350,000 engagements  and a whopping 16 million reach, which potentially contributed to the film $170 million box office. That and the fact the film is an intense emotional roller coaster about young love and loss designed specifically to appeal to the young, movie-going audience. But let’s not let that little bit of obviousness detract from the campaign’s success

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Steve Hall

Steve Hall is a marketing professional, publisher, writer, community manager, photographer and all-around lover of advertising.