Federal Premium Ammunition wanted to establish and deepen relationships with duck hunting enthusiasts, and get them to talk about Black Cloud FS Steel (their new brand of ammunition that's redefining waterfowl hunting).

We created an online community to generate buzz around Black Cloud and engage the current base of customers and hardcore duck hunters. The online community, Stormchasers Network, is built using KickApps, a leading social networking platform.

We fleshed out site content with two specific goals:

1. to entice visitors to spend time on the site by giving them multiple ways to interact, such as uploading, rating and commenting on photos and videos, and discussing relevant topics using our message boards
2. to encourage repeat visits by incorporating periodic contests and a points system and by continually updating official content

More than 2,200 "duckaholics" joined the network in the first 5 months, which is especially remarkable given that the site was not promoted via any significant media effort. Federal Premium now has a dedicated group of target audience members who interact with each other and the brand on a regular basis—talking, sharing photos, and creating and uploading videos.

In only 5 months, members have:

• started 1,300 discussions containing more than 7,800 individual messages
• uploaded more than 7,700 photos, which were viewed more than 60,000 times
• posted 309 videos, which were viewed nearly 18,000 times

Engagement metrics confirm that the social networking site has been a huge success. On a number of important metrics, Stormchasers Network significantly outperforms benchmarks.

• Of nearly 50,000 visitors, 57% have come to the site more than once, and 35% have come 9 or more times.
• The average length of visits is more than 8 minutes—177% longer than the benchmark for hunting & shooting sites of similar size, and 168% longer than similar-sized niche social networks.
• Each visitor views nearly 13 pages/visit, which is 215% more pages and 266% more pages than similar-sized hunting & shooting sites and niche social networks, respectively.

For the launch of the new season of Stormchasers Network, we've enhanced the site with a number of new features, including a blog authored by the top point earner from the first season and an interactive duck migration map that allows visitors to upload details about their own sightings.