REACTIONS
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After my publicity campaign and the BBC news slot, I managed to maintain between 2000-3000 followers on either Twitter or Facebook. Mostly the audience was on Twitter and they were eager to engage with Karen. It was sometimes hard to tell whether some of the audience believed what was happening or whether they found out it was a story while following her account and kept on reading and interacting. My only regret is that I wasn't in a position to answer people's tweets, as they were scheduled while I was at work. So I only managed a few responses. However, I was incredibly proud that I achieved this level of engagement in an early transmedia project and was humbled by the responses after the story event finished, with requests for a sequel and people stating they've been inspired by the creativity.
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The below screengrabs are just a few of the audience interactions.
(Use magnifier if using desktop or pinch zoom on mobile)
After the last tweet, people congratulated me and were inspired by the creative storytelling technique.
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Some audience interactions with Karen Barley tweeting back. These were small moments when I was able to engage while I wasn't at work.
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The audience really began to feel the tension of the story as Karen started to tweet strange photos and videos of Darren and even some audio clips.
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It was sometimes difficult for me to figure out if people really believed Karen was real when they would tell her what she should be doing or feeling - like the bottom right tweet from someone.
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In this tweetfest, people were trying to tell Karen that they'd seen a figure standing behind Darren, after she tweeted a seemingly innocent photo. Which was exactly the reaction I was hoping for.
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Near the climax of the story, the audience were ramped up with concern and fear for Karen's wellbeing and also followed the plot that Darren had a doppelganger and Darren himself was stuck in a parallel universe. This gave me great joy to know the storyline was being followed without too much confusion.
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