Xilinx identified the "Maker" community as a new audience to engage through social media. They sponsored an electronics design contest where the winner created a positive video about the Xilinx prize kit. This brought Xilinx in contact with an influencer, Jeri Ellsworth, who featured Xilinx's FPGA in one of her projects and videos, exposing her large social media audiences to Xilinx.

1. 2012 Innotech
Social Media Awards

2. BtoBSemiconductor Success Story: Xilinx
Results: Reaching Audiences & Influencers
• Identified a new audience for Xilinx to engage with – the “Maker” community. Through
social media, discovered the 555 Contest, an electronic designer contest, and donated
a kit for a prize. As a sponsor, Xilinx was mentioned repeatedly in contest
communications and videos. The winner of Xilinx kit was so happy that he made a
video about it (a good example user-generated content).
• The contest put us in touch with Maker guru Jeri Ellsworth, who was soon after asked
to Keynote ESC along with Steve Wozniak. Jeri visited the Xilinx booth where she
posed for photos and was given a few dev kits for future projects/programs. She then
chose to use a Xilinx FPGA in a Software Defined Radio project and featured it with
multiple videos to her 16K+ YouTube audience and tweets to her 9K+ Twitter following.