.svg)
.svg)
Client Background
HP is a well-recognized technology company that makes and sells computers and printers. Its business is divided into two main segments: Personal Systems and Printing. Through its personal systems segment, the company sells desktops, laptops, and work stations, catering to both individual consumers and businesses.
In 2015, the original Hewlett Packard company split into two entities: HP and HPE. HP Inc. retained the computer and printer business. The company serves millions of customers globally and has established a solid distribution network. It offers its products through brand stores, online, and directly to businesses.
As a global technology brand, HP continually looks for ways to extend its brand reach through authentic initiatives. Employees and channel partners are often the most credible advocates of a brand, and HP aimed to leverage this network to amplify its message organically.
However, tracking social media participation across multiple platforms manually was proving to be unsustainable and inefficient. HP needed a scalable employee advocacy platform that could automate data collection, standardize scoring, and visualize performance in real time to maintain momentum throughout the campaign period.
Challenges & Objectives
Before diving into the solutions, let’s understand the key challenges we faced and the main objectives we aimed to achieve through this project:
Challenges
Multi-Platform Complexity: The project required capturing posts from three different social media platforms, each with its own set of data structures, APIs and privacy restrictions. Consistent data collection and validation became technically challenging due to this.
Content Quality Control: Filtering out irrelevant posts, duplicates, and unrelated hashtags became challenging at scale. Users experimented with different content formats making the task all the more complex.
Motivation and Fairness: It was critical to maintain trust in the scoring system. Participation and overall engagement could be reduced by any perceptions of bias or due to errors.
Scalability Issues: Besides being time consuming, manual monitoring was not sustainable for the campaign’s global reach. An automated system was required to handle large volumes of content daily without errors.
Engagement Fatigue: Another major concern was to sustain participant interest over the entire campaign duration. Employees and partners could lose motivation without visible recognition and timely updates.
Data Transparency for Stakeholders: The marketing team needed accurate and real-time insights into campaign performance. Manual spreadsheets could cause delays and also lacked visualisation for quick decision making.
Objectives
Automate Campaign Monitoring: The project required the creation of a system that could seamlessly capture, validate, and track hashtag based posts across the three social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Standardise Scoring: A transparent, rules-based scoring matrix was needed to ensure fairness and encourage quality over quantity.
Promote Healthy Competition: A leaderboard , which is updated in real time, motivating employees and partners with gamification and recognition.
Deliver Actionable Insights: Another important objective was to provide the HP marketing team with a comprehensive dashboard that offered data visualization, performance tracking, and campaign reporting.
Ensure Scalability and Reusability: The project also required designing a framework, which could be adapted for future campaigns, other regions, or extended to various internal initiatives.
Strengthen Advocacy Culture: Another critical objective was to encourage employees and channel partners to become brand advocates. This would amplify HP’s reach through their trusted networks.
Improve Efficiency: We needed to minimize manual effort and reduce dependency on human intervention such that the focus remained on strategy and engagement.
Approach & Implementation
Here is the step-by-step strategy and actions taken to successfully plan, execute, and complete the project:
Hashtag & Platform Criteria
The project began by working closely with HP to define the list of approved campaign hashtags. These would serve as the primary filters for identifying eligible content. The system was designed to monitor posts on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, using keyword-matching logic to verify inclusion of valid hashtags.
Automated Scraper System
Relu Consultancy developed a platform-specific scraping system that collected social media posts once every 24 hours. The scraper was customized to handle each platform’s formatting and privacy constraints. It extracted relevant data, including:
- Date and time of the post
- Post content
- Associated hashtags
- Poster identity (when available)
The automation eliminated the need for manual tracking and reduced the chances of human oversight, functioning as a social media automation dashboard for enterprise brands.
Scoring Logic & Matrix
A flexible point system was introduced to quantify participant contributions. For instance, a valid post on Instagram might earn a specific number of points, while an additional post on LinkedIn would be rewarded similarly.
Points were calculated based on the number of valid posts per participant and were automatically updated in the system. This operated as a part of an employee advocacy tracking system with real-time scoring.
Only posts that met predefined criteria were awarded points, ensuring quality control and preventing exploitation through repetitive or unrelated content.
Dashboard & Leaderboard
Relu Consultancy delivered two key visual components:
- Admin Dashboard for HP: This interface allowed HP’s marketing team to review participation statistics, post volumes, and platform-specific breakdowns.
- Leaderboard for Participants: A public-facing interface ranked contributors by total score, helping build excitement and encouraging healthy competition. The leaderboard was refreshed daily, reflecting the latest validated activity.
Together, these tools supported HP’s vision for brand engagement automation with as much transparency as possible.
Maintenance & Updates
Daily monitoring and updates were central to the campaign’s success. The system was configured to scrape new data every morning, validate it against scoring rules, and refresh both dashboards. Feedback loops from HP’s team were used to refine filtering logic and address edge cases, such as duplicate hashtags or platform-specific anomalies.
Results & Outcomes
The following results highlight the key achievements and impact of the project
- Over the course of the campaign, the system tracked thousands of valid posts across the three platforms, all without manual intervention
- Participation among internal employees and channel partners increased significantly due to real-time recognition and visibility.
- The gamified structure and transparent leaderboard fostered sustained engagement, with several participants competing actively until the campaign’s end.
- HP was able to access a clean, structured dataset for performance reporting and future campaign planning.
Benefits
Here are the main benefits of the HP Social Tracker system:
- Real-time engagement tracking: Daily updates incentivize participation and keep momentum high.
- Scalable framework: The system can be reused for future campaigns or adapted for other internal initiatives.
- Custom dashboards: Tailored interfaces for admins and participants enable transparency and control.
- Automation reduces overhead: Manual effort is minimized, freeing teams to focus on strategy and community building.
- Data-driven insights: Structured reporting enables better evaluation of campaign effectiveness and future planning.
These advantages collectively ensured that HP's campaign was not only successful in the short term, but also established a scalable model for future engagement initiatives.
Use Cases by Industry
The HP Social Tracker can support different industries based on their specific communication and engagement goals:
Technology & IT Services:
- Track employee advocacy and engagement during product launches or internal branding initiatives.
- Encouraging partners and resellers to share case studies, client success stories with the aim to strengthen market credibility.
Retail:
- Motivate in-store employees and franchise partners to share promotional campaigns, seasonal sales, and store opening updates.
- Showcase customer experiences and product demonstrations through employee generated content.
Education:
- Boost visibility for campus events, admission campaigns, and alumni stories by engaging students and staff.
- Encouraging student ambassadors to share experiences during placement drives or academic competitions.
Healthcare:
- Promoting awareness campaigns for health checkups, vaccination drives, or hospital initiatives through employee and doctor advocacy.
- Encouraging staff to highlight success stories, CSR activities, or patient education content.
Finance:
- Strengthening internal communications and brand image by gamifying content sharing during key business quarters.
- Encouraging employees to share updates about financial literacy programs, investment products, or corporate achievements.
Hospitality & Travel:
- Encouraging hotel staff, travel agents, and tour operators to share guest experiences, property highlights, and cultural activities.
- Promoting seasonal offers, new packages, and local experiences through employee advocacy.
Manufacturing & Industrial:
- Showcasing factory operations, safety initiatives, and CSR activities with the aim to build transparency and trust.
- Enabling distributors and channel partners to share updates on product launches and training workshops.
Non-Profit & NGOs:
- Mobilize volunteers and staff to share stories from fieldwork and fundraising events.
- Using the leaderboard concept to motivate communities to amplify awareness drives.
Government & Public Sector:
- Encouraging employees to share updates related to national campaigns, digital initiatives, or public outreach programs.
- Use advocacy tracking during awareness weeks to measure citizen engagement.
These examples show how the tracker can be adapted for real-world engagement, regardless of sector or campaign focus.
Key Takeaways
Here are the main insights and lessons from the project:
- Gamification Works: Introducing a leaderboard and reward structure was effective in motivating participants and sustaining activity.
- Automation Was Essential: Without an automated scraper and scoring engine, real-time tracking at this scale would have been unmanageable.
- Visibility Increases Engagement: Participants were more likely to contribute consistently when they could track their ranking and receive immediate feedback.
- Scalability Is Now Possible: The system built by Relu Consultancy can be reused and scaled for future campaigns or extended to other regions and user groups.
Conclusion
Relu Consultancy’s end-to-end solution enabled HP to run a high-impact social media engagement campaign that combined automation, transparency, and user motivation. The system successfully tracked and rewarded internal and partner contributions across multiple platforms, transforming what would have been a manual and error-prone task into a streamlined, data-driven campaign.
By promoting brand content through trusted networks and recognizing active contributors in real time, HP was able to increase its organic visibility and foster stronger community involvement. The campaign set a benchmark of social media gamification for future employee and partner-driven marketing initiatives.
