Everyone knows the expression “pay it forward” means an unexpected act of kindness toward someone else. So, in honor of leap year, we created the hashtag #DayItForward. We figured if Chevrolet could show how we #DayItForward, it would inspire others to do the same.

In January, we posted the question, “With an extra 24 hours, what would you do for someone else?” We posted it on social channels, engaged our partners and our dealers, and chose key influencers to ask their question on their social networks.

Thousands of responses flooded in and we selected stories that would let us “DayItForward” in big, unexpected ways. We traveled across the country to surprise people and help them do good for others.

Finally, on February 29 — leap day — we posted all the content on our hub, Chevydayitforward.com, and encouraged people to watch, share, and, most important, to #DayItForward themselves.

Our execution had three stages: Request, Fulfillment and Amplification:

The Request stage piqued people’s interest in the #DayItForward movement. We used paid and owned Facebook and Twitter, iHeart Ignite, Cumulus Radio DJs, Twitter-Niche influencers, and BuzzFeed to ask how they would #DayItForward.

In the Fulfillment stage, Chevrolet helped people who wanted to #DayItForward to others by supplying gift cards, tickets to sporting events and concerts, etc. Chevrolet also partnered with celebrities and influencers to help them #DayItForward to deserving people of their choice to make some really big dreams come true. We captured all those amazing stories and turned them into content.

The Amplification stage highlighted #DayItForward acts of kindness. In the week

leading up to Leap Day, we started releasing videos and press about our #DayItForward movement. On February 29, twenty-nine unexpected “surprise and delight” videos were shared through paid, owned and earned media.

#DayItForward went beyond our wildest dreams, with over 872 million earned impressions and nearly 168 million video views. It had 15 times more video plays than previous campaigns with similar budgets. And we had the most promoted trend on Twitter ever: 8.1 million promoted trend tweets.

We inspired 115 articles and 43 earned broadcast segments, with 100% positive sentiment. Estimated reach of the print/online content was 275,419 with over 1 million impressions.

And even with no call to action to visit the site, Chevrolet.com saw a 40% increase in traffic, driving nearly half a million incremental visitors to the site.

Other brands jumped on the bandwagon, and we got high fives from Zappos, the Salvation Army, the Milwaukee Brewers, etc.

We succeeded in turning a social media campaign into a social movement.

The program was so well liked that Chevrolet plans to continue to #DayItForward for the rest of 2016.