In celebration of the release of The Tortured Poets Department and its lead single Fortnight, YouTube sought to harness the passion of Taylor Swift’s fanbase by creating an interactive and deeply personal challenge on YouTube Shorts. The goal was to drive engagement and excitement around Fortnight by inviting fans to share their own stories–one short clip at a time.
With YouTube Shorts as the launchpad, the #ForAFortnightChallenge challenged users to document their lives over a two-week span, uploading 14 videos that collectively captured their own “fortnight.” This initiative was designed to transform passive listeners into active participants, fostering a sense of community while amplifying the single’s reach across social platforms.
To set the challenge in motion, Taylor Swift personally announced it via a YouTube Shorts post–an intimate and direct invitation to her fans that ignited immediate excitement. That one post set the internet on fire, earning coverage from major outlets like Rolling Stone and Billboard, and positioning the challenge as an essential moment in Taylor’s album rollout.
YouTube deployed a fan-first engagement strategy to ensure sustained participation. Throughout the campaign, YouTube closely collaborated with Taylor Nation–Taylor’s official fan engagement team–to surface and spotlight standout videos, further inspiring participation from the Swiftie community. By leveraging YouTube Shorts’ interactive features and extending visibility across X and Instagram, the challenge took on a life of its own, encouraging a ripple effect of user participation beyond YouTube’s ecosystem.
Despite the challenge of driving long-form participation within a short-form content space, YouTube strategically designed the challenge to be easily replicable, ensuring a low barrier to entry while maximizing fan creativity.
The response was massive. Fans showed up and showed out, turning this into a true UGC success story:
The campaign gave fans a voice, made them part of the story, and transformed a song release into something personal. #ForAFortnightChallenge was a celebration of fandom, creativity, and the kind of artist-fan connection only Taylor Swift can spark.
