Earning Half a Million Views Through a Creator Collaboration for SF Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony announced Elim Chan as its next Music Director—the first woman to hold the role in the organization’s 115-year history. Their team wanted to go beyond a press release to showcase the event as a milestone not just for the Symphony, but for San Franciscans of all backgrounds.

Capacity was tasked with developing and executing a creator-led influencer campaign designed to reach the SF community through authentic storytelling. The goal was to further position Chan’s appointment as an important moment for all San Franciscans, not just existing classical music lovers. By sourcing and partnering with creators across various content niches, the campaign generated more than 653,774 video views across Instagram and TikTok while delivering an average cost per view of just $0.026.

Our Approach

First, Capacity identified creators from the SF area across a variety of niches. Our priority was to bring in creators with audiences beyond the classical music scene to reach people who might not have considered attending the symphony if not for the recommendation of a beloved creator. We targeted lifestyle creators, foodies, and creators with a personal tie to the Cantonese community in SF, since beyond being the SF Symphony’s first female Music Director, Chan is also the symphony’s first Cantonese Music Director.

With this intention as our guidepost, Capacity manually researched, contacted, and contracted a cohort of 10 creators across follower bases, communities, and content niches to achieve as diverse a reach as possible, in a 2.5-week turnaround from project launch to completion. From there, we prepped them for the night, encouraging them to create content that fit their tone of voice, rather than creating polished commercials, and let them work their magic.

Creator Content Mix:

First-Time Attendee

This group included lifestyle creators, local exploration creators, and local niche celebrities who have never attended the symphony before. From micro-niche creators like @TrainGirlSummerSF to James Beard Award-winning culinary creators like @MadeWithLau, these accounts framed their content as a bucket-list experience. This first-timer angle resonated with audiences by breaking down the perceived barriers to entry that classical music venues often face (public transit access, age-based accessibility, and more). 

Experiencing Niche SF Communities

We targeted creators who are seen as tastemakers within narrower SF communities to create a sense that the symphony is the place to see and be seen. From creators like @TundeModupee who showcase what it looks like to be young and carefree in SF to well-known creators in the SF Chinese community like @Xirimpi (Miss San Francisco Chinatown 2025), these niches were worth tapping into. Their audiences trust that they have their fingers on the pulse of the social scene for their individual communities, and the comment sections were full of followers sharing their desire to follow in their footsteps and attend the symphony.

General Lifestyle/Travel Creators

These creators position themselves as their followers’ go-to for recommendations in SF and beyond. Their feeds are full of reviews of local restaurants, round-ups of favorite local shops, and summaries on how best to spend a day in a specific neighborhood. These posts felt like the most traditional content collaborations.

Trend Commentary

Our smallest (and most effective) creator niche group was trend commentary. Creator @KiraMadeThis created a piece focused on attending classical music events as a larger trend across young people, with the SF Symphony event at the center of her video. This trend prediction earned the most reach of all content in the campaign and sparked a great deal of discussion in the comments section. This approach struck a chord with followers because it went beyond a typical recap to connect the event to a cross-cultural yearning for meaningful, offline experiences and reconnecting with established cultural institutions.

The Results

653,774+ Views Across Instagram and TikTok

The campaign generated more than 653,774 video views across 11 videos from 10 creators (one creator, @MattiasBlanco, gave some additional bang for our buck with a second video showing that classical music and rave-centric nightlife can coexist). 

Campaign Performance Metrics:

• 653,774+ total video views
• 10 creator partnerships
• 11 videos published
• $0.026 average cost-per-view*

Notably, post views continue to rise as of this case study’s publication.

*Cost-per-view was calculated based on the fees paid to creators.

Three Creators Drove 86% of Total Views

Casting a wide net of creators is crucial because, in an ever-changing algorithm, it’s hard to know which content or creator will take off. By entrusting a diverse fleet of creators with an event, your organization is much more likely to have multiple posts with views that pay off in dividends.

The diversity of our top-performing content (which ranged across all four of our content creator types) suggests the story resonated across multiple audience segments rather than relying on a single creative approach.

Key Takeaways

Build Around the Audience, Not the Announcement

This campaign was a success because the SF Symphony was willing to take an announcement beyond a press release and put the storytelling into the hands of the creators. While SF Symphony approved the final videos, the feedback focused on fact-checking and logistical details instead of editorial concepts, leaving room for creators to share the announcement through stories their audiences already cared about—history, identity, lifestyle, belonging, and first-time experiences.

One Story Can Support Multiple Creative Angles

By allowing each creator to find their own connection to the event, the deliverables had content angles we couldn’t have foreseen. We were touched to learn that the father of one of our creators @MadeWithLau had a lifelong love for classical music as a flutist. This featured in his content, and the comments were filled with sweet messages of audience members feeling inspired to take their parents to the symphony, sharing memories of their parents playing classical music, and more. Other creators shared anecdotes about their time playing in middle school bands, their insecurities about attending an event outside of their comfort zone, and more. These personal stories gave their audiences multiple entry points to the same cultural moment, providing access to different communities than a typical campaign.

Creator-Audience Fit Outperformed Creator Fee

Across the board, creators’ ability to create content that resonated with their specific audience was more important than follower count or investment level.

One of our key takeaways is that an organization does not need a massive influencer budget to see major results, at a low Cost Per View rate.

The strongest performers included:

• @KiraMadeThis: $0.003 CPV
• @Miss.HauteMess: $0.004 CPV
• @MattiasBlanco: $0.019 CPV
• @Xirimpi: $0.034 CPV

A creator of any size can create a piece of content that delivers a strong campaign. The key is to allow them to appeal to their audience in the way they know will resonate best. In many cases, a modest fee and specific angle beats a high-follower creator with a generic brief. Our creative strategy, not the spend level, drove this result.

To watch all of the creators’ videos, check out this board.

Influencer Marketing Can Be a Powerful Awareness Tool for Arts Organizations

Influencer marketing is a game-changing addition to cultural institutions’ marketing mix. Partnerships with creators provide a scalable way to introduce an organization to new audiences through angles and relationships it otherwise wouldn’t have access to.

Looking Ahead

As arts organizations continue searching for effective ways to reach new audiences, this campaign demonstrates the value of creator-led storytelling rooted in authentic audience connection.

By matching creators to distinct audience motivations and giving them ownership over the narrative, the SF Symphony transformed a historic organizational announcement into a cultural conversation that reached hundreds of thousands of people across social platforms.