We asked ourselves what would be the best new way to teach history in the social media era? How can we engage an audience used to snaps, tweets, developing situations and breaking news? So we decided to create a large-scale Twitter role-play that re-enacts history, in real time.

#1917LIVE is a Twitter time-machine which takes you 100 years back to relive the Russian Revolution. Dozens of historical accounts from Tsar Nicholas II to Vladimir Lenin live-tweet events day-by-day, as if Twitter existed a century ago.

One of the project’s key objectives is to educate and inspire the audience to learn, while setting new best-in-class Twitter standards. With #1917LIVE, our task was to introduce a new format which can be effectively adapted by schools and universities in history education courses globally.

Among PR objectives – we aimed at increasing brand awareness by creating an innovative cross-platform storytelling.

Characters’ accounts create an alternate 1917 reality, united in a historical Twitter universe under the flagship feed of a fictitious media outlet.

The central narrative pillar was created by team of journalists and researchers. All tweets are accurately sourced through memoirs, diaries, letters, newspapers of that time. A key project element is #1917CROWD – a community hashtag which allowed anyone to create their own historically authentic “avatar” and engage with the events of 100 years ago.

Developing in real time, the project creates a highly engaging experience – our audience followed and interacted with historic figures almost like via digital time machine.

Among key project features:

- series of online teasers filmed in authentic locations and historic entourage

- use of rare archive images and footage as just-in Breaking News videos

- unique 360 VR-series bringing viewers back in time to experience 1917 Russia almost as it was. The eight videos place the viewer in the middle of dramatic scenes: you can witness WW1 battles, visit a revolutionary printing house, or sneak into Lenin’s hideout apartment

- LIVE Q&A sessions with characters like Lenin, Kerensky, Tsar Nicholas II during which anyone could have asked historic figure a question and be answered

- collaboration with Paulo Coelho on first-person tweets by Mata Hari adapting his book “The Spy” to #1917LIVE storytelling

- 24/7 coverage of the November uprising featuring mock-up CCTV footage depicting a revolutionary raid

- online map under #LeninTracker hashtag which followed Vladimir Lenin’s 7-day-trip from Switzerland to Russia in real time

- POV LIVE Periscope stream from Lenin’s secret hideout (we built an exact copy of the original hut)

- collaboration with digital artist Marina Amaral who exclusively colorized a series of rare archive photos

- creative incorporation of trending hashtags, polls, Moments, other interactive tools