Novelist Nicholas Sparks reached out to his Twitter and Facebook community to promote the release of The Lucky One film earlier this year. Following the campaign, the adaptation of one of his novel defied box office predictions.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sparks talked about his recent experiments in social media strategy, including tweets from actors in his film, a Foursquare push and a Google+ Hangout (video embedded above). Here’s more about the campaign:

The result: social media conversation about Mr. Sparks spiked by more than 300%, and tracking surrounding opening weekend for “The Lucky One” started to climb, according to Eric Kuhn, an agent at United Talent Agency who was hired last year as a specialist in social media. (The movie ultimately opened to a $23 million weekend, more than 50% better than predicted.)