General Electric just wrapped up its #6SecondScience Fair on Vine, a friendly affair asking Viners, “how much science can you fit into six seconds?” Starting on August 8th and ending on the 15th, GE recruited such Vine virtuosos as Meagan Cignoli, Rudy Mancuso, and Jordan Burt to contribute their own renditions, as well as leaving it open to anybody else with an scientific idea to showcase.
The fair came to fruition after GE saw that its six-second science experiment – demonstrating what happens when milk, food coloring, and dish soap are combined – became its most popular Vine to date.
Over the course of the campaign, which had no prize offering, over 400 videos were submitted to GE’s dedicated tumblr, demonstrating that even without incentives there is much to be gained from prompting users to submit their own content. What’s more, almost none of the submissions were spam; many were pretty compelling, such as how to move water with a balloon, and how to make a lava lamp, among others. Of course it wouldn’t be an internet event without a joke submission:
See more great examples of #6secondscience on GE’s science fair Tumblr.
In addition to the native promotion, GEO recruited BuzzFeed to post “14 Reasons Chemistry Class Ruled“, drawing over 1.4 thousand Facebook likes since its August 7th posting, as well as “13 Science Projects Explained in 6 Seconds or Less“.
Although GE didn’t explicitly attach this campaign to the start of the new school year, the timing could not have worked out better. BuzzFeed’s chemistry class mock-retrospective list-icle may have helped drum up excitement, but clearly there are a lot of scientists, both professional and amateur, who want to share their passion for experimentation.
Is your brand coming up with fun and exciting ways to inspire fan participation?
