On November 15th, a five year-old named Miles Scott barreled into public consciousness as Batkid , a crime-fighting San Francisco superhero who takes on tricky villains like the Riddler and the Penguin, all while cruising around in a Lamborghini. That day, Miles, a Make-a-Wish Foundation grantee who recently finished chemotherapy treatments for leukemia, received Twitter shout-outs from Barack Obama , Britney Spears, and millions of others. He also had a crowd of tens of thousands cheering him on in person.

The event, while heartwarming, didn’t randomly go viral all on its own (few things do), though it may have seemed like it to anyone watching as #SFBatKid showed up every five seconds in their Twitter stream. Rather, it was a carefully crafted campaign from Clever Girls Collective, a content and social media agency that normally works with clients like Toyota, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Samsung. “We’ve been around for about four years as an under-the-radar social media company. Having an opportunity like Batkid was incredible for us. It showcased what we do every single day,” says Stefania Pomponi, the California company’s co-founder.





Pomponi came across the planned Batkid event, which involved Miles rescuing a damsel in distress from the train tracks, stopping the Penguin from kidnapping the San Francisco Giants seal mascot, and getting the key to the city from the mayor, on local blog SFist. While Make-a-Wish’s Greater Bay Area chapter didn’t have any social media following, the compelling story was already starting to make the blog rounds thanks to word of mouth. Pomponi was immediately inspired.

Two weeks before the event, she reached out to the local Make-a-Wish branch and offered her services pro bono. She says that while Apple stepped in to do PR, Clever Girls took care of all things social media.

Within 24 hours, the agency had a plan. First, Pomponi and her colleagues coordinated with Twitter to secure some important handles, including @SFWish for all information about the event and @PenguinSF (for Batkid’s nemesis, portrayed by staff at Clever Girls). Previously, the head of Make-a-Wish Greater Bay Area had only been using her personal Twitter account to get information across. “We said, “From now on, use #SFbatkid as a hashtag on everything,'” says Pomponi.





All tweets before the event directed back to a single link–the Make-a-Wish site containing the details of Batkid’s planned adventure.

Editor’s Note Clever Girls pays its network of influencers for nearly every campaign they participate in, except pro bono campaigns like #SFBatkid. No one was required to participate. “Our network is used to seeing pro bono opportunities from us, and usually the response to help is overwhelmingly positive,” writes Pomponi.

For many campaigns, Clever Girls works across social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram. This one was entirely Twitter-focused (though it also had a Facebook page). But the agency still used it’s 6,000-plus network of paid influencers–people with large online followings who act as social media foot soldiers in Clever Girls campaigns–to spread in the word.