VÉLO QUÉBEC : TOUR DE L’ÎLE Case Study

Vélo Québec, a non-profit organization, has been a prominent part of the cycling landscape in Québec. The organization has continuously encouraged the use of the bicycle, whether for tourism purposes or as a means of clean and active transportation, so as to improve the environment, health and well-being of citizens.

Context

The Montréal Bike Fest is one of the largest events for cyclists in North America. The Tour de l’Île is the festival’s most popular event and attracted more than 20,000 participants in 2010. On this day, Vélo Québec, the event’s organizer, relied on the expertise of Ressac Media to improve their engagement on social media platforms.

Solution

In the last few years, the Bike Fest created tons of content online scattered around various blogs and social networks, which created an exciting buzz for the duration of the event. Ressac Media took the initiative by sending out reporters on two wheels to reinforce the content trail and branded the whole project, Vélo Québec. The reporters’ missions were to create as much content as possible in a variety of media formats: images, videos and articles. A live animation via Twitter accompanied the efforts of the reporters in the peloton. Business cards branded with Vélo Québec’s social networks were also distributed to incite participants to share their personal experience on these platforms.

RETURNS

After the event, Resac Medias’s reporters on two wheels produced 54 videos of the event and were all uploaded on Vélo Québec’s YouTube channel for the world to view. The Facebook fanpage served as a point of entry for all distributed material and sharing. A customized tab included the Youtube videos as well as a hundred new photos from fans. This user-contributed material resulted in a high level of interaction and visibility for Vélo Québec and its fans. Their engagement also pushed the Tour de l’Île among one of the top “trending” topics on Twitter. The reporters’ efforts also had massive repercussions in the blogosphere. New articles allowed for an increased visibility of the event and added search value for future events to come.

Conclusion

"Ressac Media’s interventions allowed us to launch our first social media engagement specifically on Facebook and Twitter, and they returned excellent results. After this positive experience, we are certain that social media will play an important role in our company and in the coverage of our future events."

Jean-Jacques Morin
VP, marketing and customer service