Archive for social media promotion

7 Tips for Creating a Social Media Plan for Your Business

July 24, 2012 / Jim Belosic / No comments

social media how toDo you have social media plan?

Are you looking for an easy to follow guide to formulate a plan for your business?

Keep reading for seven tips to help your business develop a social plan…

Why Businesses Fail With Social Media

Businesses often fail in their social media efforts for the same reason New Year’s resolutions fail: It’s a good idea, but there’s no structure or commitment.

Then, when there are no immediate results, or the goal ends up being more difficult to attain than previously thought, it goes by the wayside.

Has this happened to your business’s social media presence? You aren’t alone. Very few people can simply choose to be active in social media and stick with it.

For the rest of us, we need something to keep us honest. That’s why I advocate you create a social media plan—a checklist, if you will—complete with daily maintenance, recurring tasks and milestone projects.

These seven tips will help you design a social media plan that will keep you on track, active and moving forward.

#1: Make a Commitment

Before you even start creating your plan, you have to make a promise. Establishing a healthy social media presence can be a very slow process. You can’t expect your list of fans, followers or subscribers to grow overnight.

You don’t want to start your business’s presence out by posting and updating consistently, only to get bored, lose interest and forget to log in when there’s no immediate gratification.

To prevent that kind of slide, make a commitment. Even if it’s just to yourself—even if you have to frame it and hang it above your computer.

No matter how silly an exercise it may seem, acknowledging and agreeing with yourself that building this presence could take upwards of a year (and then some), and then promising to invest time, energy and resources into it no matter what, will keep you committed and prepare you to be active and engaged even when you feel like your presence is stagnating.

#2: Find Your Best Fit

If you’re just getting your business’s social media efforts up and running, part of creating your plan revolves around seeing if you already have a fanbase out there.

yelp review

Search for your business on sites like Yelp. Thank customers for their good reviews, and apologize to customers who gave bad reviews. You could turn that bad experience into a loyal customer and a better review.

So do some searching. Are there lots of people posting videos to YouTube of themselves using your product? Does your company have a bunch of mentions on Twitter? Do you have reviews on Yelp?

Although it’s important to establish a presence on a giant like Facebook, make sure you also set up shop where you’re already visible.

#3: Schedule Engagement

Now that you’ve identified the social media platforms you’re going to focus on, it’s time to turn your attention to the ways and frequency with which you’ll engage with your users.

Infrequent interaction is one of the main reasons businesses experience social media failure.

Those who are most successful in social media know that you have to engage steadily.

taco bell twitter feed

Funny, engaging and prolific, Taco Bell's Twitter feed provides fans with frequent news, entertainment and engagement—a model for other companies.

Think of creating and responding to comments, tweets, posts, etc., as simple daily maintenance. It must be done. You need to start the conversation with your users, and anytime they reach out to you, you need to be prepared to respond.

Remember that the timetable for creating and responding to content is platform-specific. Twitter moves so fast that tweets can become irrelevant within the hour, whereas Facebook status updates and posts have a few hours of staying power, and videos are great because of their longevity.

#4: Create Expert Content

Your fans and followers don’t want commercials, they want conversation. They don’t want to hear how great your company is, they already like or follow you. They don’t want sales numbers, they want industry news and thought leadership.

A good rule of thumb is to talk about your customers and your industry 80% to 90% of the time, and then discuss your own business. That means you need to start a blog, write white papers, explore trends, release case studies and create infographics.

Post frequently and do it consistently. Your ideal goal should be some kind of content every couple of days or so. Avoid going longer than a week without posting.

Thorough, in-depth articles and papers will position your business as an industry expert and thought leader, and keep your fans and followers (and even competitors) looking to you.

mail chimp guides

MailChimp's more than 30 Guides cover a range of topics—from email marketing best practices to papers on how to use MailChimp most effectively—positioning them as a leader in email marketing.

#5: Run Contests and Promotions

Contests and promotions keep fans and followers excited, interested and coming back. Most importantly, they’re a covert way to get your business or brand in front of more people. That doesn’t mean you need to run one all the time.

If you’ve always got some kind of giveaway going, they’ll soon become more social background noise. This is especially true if you’re giving away not-so-great prizes.

Run a contest or promotion every couple of months, and make sure the prize is something to get excited about.

falken tire contest giveaway

Falken Tire's Porsche Giveaway is gated to fans only. And when the prize is as great as a Porsche, their fanbase is sure to be active and their fan count is sure to go up.

#6: Broaden Your Horizons

Every social media plan needs to start out the same way, with a commitment to the long haul and a focus on the basics like interaction and content. But once your presence is established and your users are engaged, you’re free to open things up to experimentation.

If you’ve built a solid fan following on Facebook, create and install some custom apps on your page, start posting videos on YouTube or interact more frequently by hopping on Twitter. Try things out for a few months, and then go back and see how they’ve performed for you.

Not every platform will be a fit, so if your business isn’t performing well on one for an extended period of time, don’t be afraid to pull the plug and explore different options.

rosetta stone apps

Rosetta Stone's numerous custom apps help them better engage their fanbase of over 1.1 million.

#7: Delegate Tasks

If you’re at the point where you’re looking at expanding to new platforms, congratulations! You’ve likely got a healthy presence. But don’t let all of this growth overwhelm you. The larger you grow, the more in danger you are of failing to engage (point #3), because—let’s face it—social media is a lot of work.

So look into adding some more team members. Graphic artists for your infographics, writers for your blogs and white papers and even some interns to manage the day-to-day social media conversations and information-gathering. A talented team can give you a richer, more robust presence than you could ever achieve on your own.

facebook admins

More admins frees you up to expand your social media pursuits and makes day-to-day engagement easier to cover, especially for pages with large fan bases.

What do you think? What’s your business’s story? Do you already have a social media plan? How’s it working out? Or are you about to implement one? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.


Category: commitment, custom app, Engagement, fanbase, How To, jim belosic, Social Media, social media contest, social media plan, social media presence, social media promotion, social media strategy /

7 Tips for Creating a Social Media Plan for Your Business

July 24, 2012 / Jim Belosic / One comment

social media how toDo you have social media plan?

Are you looking for an easy to follow guide to formulate a plan for your business?

Keep reading for seven tips to help your business develop a social plan…

Why Businesses Fail With Social Media

Businesses often fail in their social media efforts for the same reason New Year’s resolutions fail: It’s a good idea, but there’s no structure or commitment.

Then, when there are no immediate results, or the goal ends up being more difficult to attain than previously thought, it goes by the wayside.

Has this happened to your business’s social media presence? You aren’t alone. Very few people can simply choose to be active in social media and stick with it.

For the rest of us, we need something to keep us honest. That’s why I advocate you create a social media plan—a checklist, if you will—complete with daily maintenance, recurring tasks and milestone projects.

These seven tips will help you design a social media plan that will keep you on track, active and moving forward.

#1: Make a Commitment

Before you even start creating your plan, you have to make a promise. Establishing a healthy social media presence can be a very slow process. You can’t expect your list of fans, followers or subscribers to grow overnight.

You don’t want to start your business’s presence out by posting and updating consistently, only to get bored, lose interest and forget to log in when there’s no immediate gratification.

To prevent that kind of slide, make a commitment. Even if it’s just to yourself—even if you have to frame it and hang it above your computer.

No matter how silly an exercise it may seem, acknowledging and agreeing with yourself that building this presence could take upwards of a year (and then some), and then promising to invest time, energy and resources into it no matter what, will keep you committed and prepare you to be active and engaged even when you feel like your presence is stagnating.

#2: Find Your Best Fit

If you’re just getting your business’s social media efforts up and running, part of creating your plan revolves around seeing if you already have a fanbase out there.

yelp review

Search for your business on sites like Yelp. Thank customers for their good reviews, and apologize to customers who gave bad reviews. You could turn that bad experience into a loyal customer and a better review.

So do some searching. Are there lots of people posting videos to YouTube of themselves using your product? Does your company have a bunch of mentions on Twitter? Do you have reviews on Yelp?

Although it’s important to establish a presence on a giant like Facebook, make sure you also set up shop where you’re already visible.

#3: Schedule Engagement

Now that you’ve identified the social media platforms you’re going to focus on, it’s time to turn your attention to the ways and frequency with which you’ll engage with your users.

Infrequent interaction is one of the main reasons businesses experience social media failure.

Those who are most successful in social media know that you have to engage steadily.

taco bell twitter feed

Funny, engaging and prolific, Taco Bell's Twitter feed provides fans with frequent news, entertainment and engagement—a model for other companies.

Think of creating and responding to comments, tweets, posts, etc., as simple daily maintenance. It must be done. You need to start the conversation with your users, and anytime they reach out to you, you need to be prepared to respond.

Remember that the timetable for creating and responding to content is platform-specific. Twitter moves so fast that tweets can become irrelevant within the hour, whereas Facebook status updates and posts have a few hours of staying power, and videos are great because of their longevity.

#4: Create Expert Content

Your fans and followers don’t want commercials, they want conversation. They don’t want to hear how great your company is, they already like or follow you. They don’t want sales numbers, they want industry news and thought leadership.

A good rule of thumb is to talk about your customers and your industry 80% to 90% of the time, and then discuss your own business. That means you need to start a blog, write white papers, explore trends, release case studies and create infographics.

Post frequently and do it consistently. Your ideal goal should be some kind of content every couple of days or so. Avoid going longer than a week without posting.

Thorough, in-depth articles and papers will position your business as an industry expert and thought leader, and keep your fans and followers (and even competitors) looking to you.

mail chimp guides

MailChimp's more than 30 Guides cover a range of topics—from email marketing best practices to papers on how to use MailChimp most effectively—positioning them as a leader in email marketing.

#5: Run Contests and Promotions

Contests and promotions keep fans and followers excited, interested and coming back. Most importantly, they’re a covert way to get your business or brand in front of more people. That doesn’t mean you need to run one all the time.

If you’ve always got some kind of giveaway going, they’ll soon become more social background noise. This is especially true if you’re giving away not-so-great prizes.

Run a contest or promotion every couple of months, and make sure the prize is something to get excited about.

falken tire contest giveaway

Falken Tire's Porsche Giveaway is gated to fans only. And when the prize is as great as a Porsche, their fanbase is sure to be active and their fan count is sure to go up.

#6: Broaden Your Horizons

Every social media plan needs to start out the same way, with a commitment to the long haul and a focus on the basics like interaction and content. But once your presence is established and your users are engaged, you’re free to open things up to experimentation.

If you’ve built a solid fan following on Facebook, create and install some custom apps on your page, start posting videos on YouTube or interact more frequently by hopping on Twitter. Try things out for a few months, and then go back and see how they’ve performed for you.

Not every platform will be a fit, so if your business isn’t performing well on one for an extended period of time, don’t be afraid to pull the plug and explore different options.

rosetta stone apps

Rosetta Stone's numerous custom apps help them better engage their fanbase of over 1.1 million.

#7: Delegate Tasks

If you’re at the point where you’re looking at expanding to new platforms, congratulations! You’ve likely got a healthy presence. But don’t let all of this growth overwhelm you. The larger you grow, the more in danger you are of failing to engage (point #3), because—let’s face it—social media is a lot of work.

So look into adding some more team members. Graphic artists for your infographics, writers for your blogs and white papers and even some interns to manage the day-to-day social media conversations and information-gathering. A talented team can give you a richer, more robust presence than you could ever achieve on your own.

facebook admins

More admins frees you up to expand your social media pursuits and makes day-to-day engagement easier to cover, especially for pages with large fan bases.

What do you think? What’s your business’s story? Do you already have a social media plan? How’s it working out? Or are you about to implement one? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.


Category: commitment, custom app, Engagement, expert content, fanbase, How To, jim belosic, Social Media, social media contest, social media plan, social media presence, social media promotion, social media strategy /

8 Tips for Running Social Media Promotions

June 28, 2012 / Ben Pickering / No comments

social media how toHave you thought of using social media contests and sweepstakes to build and engage your audience?

Previously I wrote How to Run a Successful Social Media Contest outlining some important foundational steps: be clear on your marketing objectives, know your audience, understand different promotion types and plan ahead!

If you’re looking to gain even more traction with social promotions, here are eight additional tips to enhance your next social media campaign.

Ensure Your Promotion Doesn’t Get You In Hot Water

It’s difficult to run a successful campaign if your promotion is blocked, removed or challenged in a court of law. So before we get to the fun part of marketing, there are a few logistical tips to keep in mind.

#1: Running a Facebook Promotion Requires an App

Much has been written about the Facebook Promotional Guidelines and how to run a compliant promotion. The guidelines have evolved, but the most important requirement remains the same: any promotion (i.e., something where a consumer enters for a chance to win a prize) on Facebook must be handled through an app.

If you know what you’re doing, you could develop your own Facebook app, but you might prefer to personalize an “off-the-shelf” app by a variety of companies such as North Social, Wildfire or Strutta.

Some are inexpensive and no-frills, while others provide a more robust set of features and options to connect you with your customers and personalize the experience.

If you choose a third-party app provider, choose a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer so you can feel confident you’re in compliance with Facebook’s platform policies.

pmd badge

Look for developers and platforms that display this badge with the Apps qualification.

#2: Twitter Promotions Must Provide Rules Disclosure

Any contest or sweepstakes must provide participants with terms and conditions of entry and Twitter is no exception. With only 140 characters to work with, this becomes one of the bigger challenges of running a Twitter-based promotion.

The easiest way to address this is to host the rules on a separate web page and include a short link when tweeting about the contest. Alternatively you can host a landing page with all of the contest details and requirements and direct traffic to that page, rather than having the interaction take place within the Twitter stream.

For larger-scale promotions, you may wish to utilize a third-party service such as CMP.LY to ensure compliance.

cmply example

In this example, the CMP.LY service is used to provide a short URL linking to the terms of the promotion whenever it is shared on Twitter.

#3: Beware of the Lottery

No, I’m not worried about you blowing your paycheck on Powerball. But lotteries are the domain of the government and you want to ensure your promotion isn’t deemed an illegal lottery.

Any promotion that contains the following three elements is considered a lottery: prize, element of chance in winner selection and consideration (cash payment, purchase requirement or extensive effort required to enter).

Since you wouldn’t have much of a promotion without a prize, you must eliminate either chance or consideration (or best of all, both) to steer clear of potential legal concerns.

Tips to Build Buzz

Once you’ve dotted your I’s and crossed your T’s on the legal and policy side, it’s time to think about how to drive traffic and build momentum for your promotion.

#4: Make it Easy for Users to Share

This is the most important tip when it comes to marketing. Much of the value in a social promotion comes from the increased ease for participants to share your promotion through their social graph.

One of the reasons contests such as “Retweet to Win” are so popular is the nearly frictionless sharing. If you’re using an app on Facebook to encourage viral sharing, ensure that the sharing options are easy and intuitive.

However, it’s also important to be aware that over-sharing can lead to the perception of spam, so it’s important to strike the right balance.

Note: It’s against Facebook policy to directly reward a user for sharing. You may use Facebook apps to reward referrals, but be careful not to directly incentivize sharing.

facebook share

Integrated share tools make it easy for contest participants to share if they want to.

#5: Regularly Promote Your Contest

Contest organizers will often schedule a bunch of communications when a promotion launches, then fail to maintain communication throughout the campaign.

Be sure to share key milestones and events (e.g., contest round ending, finalists being selected, just reached 100 or 10,000 entries).

If you’re running a user-generated content promotion, it’s also a great opportunity to share content (e.g., popular or unique entries) that will drive greater engagement.

When posting about your promotion on Facebook, be sure to utilize the pinned post feature to keep the post visible at the top of the timeline.

And don’t forget to utilize all of your social channels—it’s OK to promote your Facebook contest on Twitter and Google+.

facebook post

In this example, a compelling image is used to draw attention and a direct link to the contest app is provided.

#6: Amplify Your Message Through Partners

Tap into the power of partner marketing by including sponsors and providing them with exposure in exchange for cross-promotion.

Also be sure to identify influencers (journalists, bloggers, etc.) whom you can reach out to and share news about your promotion.

If you’re running a contest with a judging component to evaluate entries, you may want to invite influencers to be a part of the judging panel. Attaching their name to your contest adds credibility and gives them a good reason to talk about it!

new york intern

PR firm Affect tapped influential people in the PR and marketing world to serve as judges and help them find the ultimate summer intern.

Tips for Contests Featuring User-Generated Content

I am a big believer in the power of user-generated content promotions, but having been involved with many over the past five years, there are a couple of key lessons I’ve learned.

#7: Prime the Pump

Any time you’re asking users to submit content into a promotion, it’s a good idea to seed the contest with a few submissions.

These can be sample entries that you create which are not eligible to win or submissions from participants who have been encouraged to enter early.

contest on facebook

In this contest run by Social Media Examiner's own Mike Stelzner, Mike provided his own sample entry to help inspire participants.

The key is to have some entries right away to break the ice and provide others with inspiration for their own submission.

#8: Think Twice Before Relying Solely on the Court of Public Opinion

Contests featuring user-generated content often incorporate a component of public voting. This is something I would encourage because it drives greater virality, with participants naturally incentivized to share their entries and voters taking an active role in the outcome.

However, if your contest is decided 100% by public voting, you need to be prepared to relinquish control of the outcome to those individuals with the largest social networks and/or those using vote-swapping and other tricks to try to game the system.

The most popular contest model among our clients uses a round of voting to narrow the field of entries down to a predetermined number of finalists, and a panel of judges then decides the winner.

By employing a set of predefined judging criteria, the client is able to retain some discretion over who is named the winner(s) while still generating a lot of voting and sharing activity up front.

Another option is to use judging criteria to select finalists and then open it to voting. Regardless of your preferred contest model, ensure that your platform of choice is well-equipped to handle voting and the potential challenges that come along with it.

A Success Story

Recently Mari Smith launched her very first contest. Mari wanted to do something fun and rewarding for her fans, and to introduce a new webinar she was hosting. She was consistently enthusiastic about delivering a great experience for her community and utilized many of the tips outlined above.

mari smith cover photo timeline

Mari did a great job of promoting the contest and keeping fans engaged by profiling interesting segments along the way.

Mari invited everyone to submit their Facebook cover photo for a chance to win a Facebook Makeover valued at $1,000. In just three weeks, the promotion received nearly 400 entries, which in turn generated 1,500 shares and more than 3,000 click-throughs.

An additional 2,000 people subsequently participated as entrants or voters as a direct result of another entrant sharing the promotion with them.

The contest received more than 25,000 visits in just three weeks, providing great exposure for Mari and generating a significant number of signups to her webinar.

I’ve seen companies of all sizes use promotions in a similar fashion to inexpensively acquire and engage fans, build awareness for a new product and ultimately drive conversions to sales.

What do you think? What would you like a social promotion to do for you? Please join in the discussion below.


Category: ben pickering, contest, facebook app, facebook contest, facebook promotion, How To, Promotion, promotional guidelines, social media campaign, social media contest, social media promotion, sweepstake, terms and conditions, twitter contest, twitter promotion, user generated contest /

Social Media Communication: Earn the Trust

May 9, 2012 / mikecoder / No comments
Social media networks were created to help you communicate effectively. It doesn’t matter what product or service you’re selling, the key is to recognize what makes people tick and use the same tactics to craft worthy and valuable contents.
Category: Behavior, Best Practices, communication, Effective Communication, Engagement, listening, Marketing, Policy & Guidelines, Socia Media, Social Business, Social Customer, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media promotion /

Social Media Communication: Earn the Trust

May 9, 2012 / mikecoder / No comments
Social media networks were created to help you communicate effectively. It doesn’t matter what product or service you’re selling, the key is to recognize what makes people tick and use the same tactics to craft worthy and valuable contents.
Category: Behavior, Best Practices, communication, Effective Communication, Engagement, listening, Marketing, Policy & Guidelines, Socia Media, Social Business, Social Customer, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media promotion /

4 Ways to Measure Social Media Success With Free Tools

April 25, 2012 / Mallory Woodrow / No comments

social media how toDo you know if your social media promotions or campaigns were successful?

For many businesses, it can be easy to label a social campaign a huge hit or a blatant blunder, but which elements made the campaign successful?

There are an array of powerful and free tools that can be used to help you understand the successes and failures of your social media promotion or campaign.

Let’s dive into four easy ways you can use free products to break down the different elements of a social promotion.

#1: Track Actions Visitors Take

One way to better understand your social campaign as a whole is to understand how your users find out about it.

Event Tracking, as mentioned in my previous post on integrating social media on your website, has the ability to report the behavior of website visitors by tracking certain actions they take.

For example, Event Tracking can be used to track the number of times a video on your site is played, a file is downloaded or a certain link is clicked.

For this article, I will focus on how you can use Event Tracking to show when individuals exit your website to your social media outlets.

Event Tracking can help marketers answer questions like:

  • Are the social media buttons on my website visible and easily accessible?
  • Are my website visitors interested in my social media pages?
  • Am I doing an effective job of displaying the current social media promotion on my website?

This information is beneficial in helping you to:

  • Understand how your users are finding your social outlets.
  • Recognize the way they interact with your brand online.
  • Identify areas of improvement in regard to your social share plug-ins or buttons.

For complete steps on how to add the actual tracking code to your website, visit Google Support here. They do an excellent job of breaking down the steps. If you need more assistance, Google Basic Tracking starts at a lower level.

Once installed, you will be able to determine the number of people clicking on your social media buttons from your website during the length of your social campaign.

If you don’t have access to the actual nuts and bolts of your site, fear not. There are other ways you can easily get information about the details of your social promotion in points #2 through #4.

#2: Identify Social Actions Generating the Most Traffic

Many business owners are familiar with seeing Twitter or Facebook as referral traffic in their Google Analytics accounts. This is often a result of a social media campaign that pushes users to the website for one reason or another; for example, a tweet that describes a sweepstakes on Facebook with a link to the rules found on your website’s blog.

Although you’re able to see that the user came from Facebook or Twitter to your sweepstakes rules, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to identify which tweet or post from your social outlets generated the most quality clicks to that page?

Google URL Builder allows you to do just that and it’s a great way to see which variation of a tweet or post harnessed the most quality clicks. Over the lifetime of a campaign, you’re able to come to conclusions about which tweet or post resonated best with your fans and followers or captured the attention of the social sphere as a whole.

How to Set Up Google Analytics URL Builder

First and foremost, you must have access to your website’s Google Analytics.

  • Go to Google Analytics URL Builder.
  • Copy and paste the website URL you will be linking to in your social media promotion.

    google url builder

    The Google URL Builder makes it simple to create custom links.

  • Fill out the campaign information so it’s easy for you to understand the elements of the campaign later. The three most important elements in understanding the data later will be Campaign Source, Campaign Medium and Campaign Name. The rest you can leave blank.
  • Keep a record of what you enter so that you can refer to it later.

How to Fill Out Campaign Information

campaign terms

Organizing your information correctly will ensure that you understand the results later.

  • Copy and paste the generated link into a link shortener and then into your campaign tweet or post.

How It Will Look in Google Analytics

To help you better understand how to organize your campaign, I will show you a campaign that I set up as an example. The social promotion seemed to be a success overall with more than 5,000 entries in a two-week period; however, the Google URL Builder allows me to dig deeper. (A big shout-out to GiftZip.com for allowing me to use these screenshots.)

The information seen below corresponds to the information I entered into the Google URL Builder in the example above.

For this example, I used the Google URL Builder to create two different links to a sweepstakes rules webpage that I included in two different tweets promoting the same Valentine’s Day Facebook sweepstakes.

I pushed them out at alternating times (9 am and 4 pm) and days so that each variation of the tweet was sent the same number of times and had the opportunity to be seen at the same time of day as the other.

In this instance, I was attempting to keep my time constant (although there is some room for error here) and focus strictly on which tweet language generated more quality clicks. To see the results of your own social media promotion, follow these steps:

  • Log into your Google Analytics account.
  • Under Traffic Sources in the left navigation, click Sources and then Campaigns.
  • Under Campaigns, click the name of your campaign. This will be what you entered under “Campaign Name.” Mine was Vday Sweepstakes.

    select your campaign

    Click Traffic Sources, Campaigns and then select your campaign.

  • Under Campaigns, you should be able to see the links you built. Mine are Social Media/Twitter and Social Media/Twitter 2.

    sweepstakes campaign

    The links I created are displayed under my Vday Sweepstakes Campaign.

The Results

At first glance, it appears as though the two tweets were essentially equal with one generating 18 clicks and the other 19 clicks.

Upon further inspection, it’s clear that one outperformed the other in regards to Average Time on Site and Bounce Rate. This means that one tweet generated far higher quality clicks than the other, in that people actually stuck around to read about how to enter the sweepstakes.

average time on site

The second tweet's link generated more high-quality clicks than the first.

The Better Tweet

The Not So Great Tweet

How to Do it Next Time

It’s clear that the tweet that described the sweepstakes in more detail generated more quality traffic than the one that simply listed the prize and name of the sweepstakes. This is information that I can consider when constructing future promotions on Twitter.

Obviously, this is a very small sample and many times you may find that the information you get is inconclusive. In this example I used language, but you can also use time of day, hashtag variations and other elements to help identify which method works best.

#3: Find Out if Your Social Promotion Grew Legs

Another product that can be used to tap into the power of Google to measure the success of your social media campaign is Google Alerts. Google Alerts allows you to see other places on the web that picked up your social promotion and delivers the information straight to your inbox.

Google Alerts can help you answer questions like:

  • Did my sweepstakes grow legs and become viral?
  • Were there other outlets that featured my promotion that I don’t know about?

Most times, if another major outlet picked up your promotion, you’ll most likely get a clue from Google Analytics because you’ll see referral traffic from the source that reposted it. But what if the outlet wasn’t linking to your website, but rather the social media page that the promotion was hosted on? This is where Google Alerts really comes in handy.

google alerts

Google Alerts allows you to get real-time updates sent directly to your inbox so you can use them throughout the duration of your campaign.

Google Alerts helps illustrate outside factors that affected your promotion’s success. If an outlet picked up the promotion, it might be worth grabbing their contact information and shooting them a thank-you email.

Identifying key individuals or outlets serves as a great way to build relationships within the social sphere and to start to compile a list of individuals and outlets to reach out to the next time you run a social media promotion.

To set up an alert, simply fill out the information you want to see and how you want to receive it:

  • Search Query can be as broad or narrow as you choose. Entering the full name of your promotion might work best.
  • Result Type allows you to select where you want Google to look. You can pick from Everything, News, Blogs, Discussions, Video and Books.
  • How Often provides options like As It Happens, Once a Day or Once a Week so you can tailor it to your needs.
  • How Many will allow you to select from all results or results Google deems the best. You can set up several alerts and manage them from your Gmail account.

#4: Get Real-Time Alerts

Like Google Alerts, Google Analytics Alerts are useful while the campaign is still running, in that they can assist you to stay up to date with the success of your promotion. This is especially significant if you work for an agency that runs several promotions at once. It also proves useful for small businesses that do not have time to check their Google Analytics accounts every day.

Netvantage Marketing managing partner Adam Henige says:

A lot of people don’t think about keeping tabs on social media with Google Analytics Alerts, but it can be a handy tool to monitor crazy traffic spikes from social sources.

Just head into Alerts and set up an alert for a significant increase in day-to-day traffic from Twitter, Facebook and Google+ and you’ll get email updates when traffic starts falling from the sky.

To set up an alert in Google Analytics:

  • Log into your Google Analytics account.
  • Select the account/website you wish to set an alert for.
  • Click the Settings button in the upper-right corner.
  • Under Profiles, click Assets > Custom Alerts > Create an Alert.

    alert

    Click on Profiles, Assets and Custom Alerts to create an alert.

  • Under Alert Name, enter something that will be easy to recognize when you receive the email.
  • The Period will depend on how long your promotion is running. For short promotions, a day works well.
  • Under This Applies To, select Traffic Sources > Source, and under Conditions select Contains Twitter. This will send you alerts about the traffic you’re receiving from Twitter. You can play with these options to receive different alerts about different outlets such as YouTube, Pinterest or Facebook.
  • Under Alert Me When, select Visits and under Condition select a number that makes sense for you. If you’re looking for spikes in traffic, you will want to put Previous Day as the Compared To value. For this one, I chose 50% more traffic than the previous day.

    create alert

    You can tailor these alerts to notify you of important information in your particular social promotion or campaign.

Overall, these tools can assist businesses to understand which portions of their social campaigns were successes and determine which areas could use improvement next time around.

What do you think? How do you use Google products to help measure the successes of social campaigns? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.


Category: campaign terms, event tracking, free google tools, google, google analytics, google analytics alerts, How To, mallory woodrow, social media campaign, Social Media Marketing, social media promotion /

How to Create a Viral Sweepstakes With Social Media

January 5, 2012 / Kane Russell / No comments

social media how toAre you considering using a sweepstakes or contest for an upcoming social media marketing campaign?

Ever wonder exactly how a social sweepstakes ties in with the idea of “viral” marketing?

In this article, I’ll analyze the concepts affecting a social media “viral sweepstakes” and how marketers can and (potentially) should take advantage.

What Exactly Is the Meaning of the Term Viral?

Marketers use the term viral to describe media proliferation in two different contexts.

On one hand, viral can describe “massive engagement;” i.e., when droves of people sign up for a particularly enticing offer. Alternatively, “views” can go viral, which occurs when people share a brand campaign with others many times over.

As more participants share content, brands benefit across three areas:

  1. More people become aware of an advertisement (brand recognition),
  2. More people become aware of brands engaging consumers with whom they have a connection (brand equity) and
  3. More people respond to an advertisement (customer acquisition).
band of buds

This online "Band of Buds" campaign from Budweiser has two viral aspects: participants recruit friends to participate and share their group's activity with others.

Beyond sharing, there are four nuances of a viral campaign marketers need to think through in order to be successful:

  1. Reason for sharing: can rely on either non-monetary (“This video is so cool that you just have to see it”) or monetary (“Share this and get a coupon”) incentives.
  2. What is shared: two most common options are evidence of participation (“Hi friends, I just entered this contest”) and actual content. Content can be brand-created or user-created.
    brand created video

    The Old Spice "Smell Like a Man" videos are an excellent example of brand-created content that spread virally via non-monetary incentives.

  3. Mode of sharing: can be either passive (post to a participant’s own profile for others to see) or active (participant sends direct messages to friends).
  4. Sharing outlet: various outlets exist for both passive (e.g., Twitter/Facebook status update) and active (e.g., direct mobile/email messaging) sharing.

    user generated content online

    This campaign from Benihana uses a $100 gift card to encourage both active and passive sharing of user-created photos.

As with most things in marketing, significant tradeoffs exist among the various viral approaches. Though cost-effective, driving sharing via non-monetary incentives is much more art than science. Sharing content spreads rich media, but risks being invasive. Passive sharing accesses a broader, albeit less interested, audience.

Selecting a specific social network or distribution channel requires a comprehensive understanding of consumer communication preferences and available marketing resources.

As described in a previous post about viral marketing, Using Social Media to Broadcast Mobile QR Codes, success ultimately comes down to execution. No one-size-fits-all solution exists, so developing a clear understanding of a campaign’s resources, customers and goals is crucial.

The Economics of a Viral Sweepstakes Campaign

Prior to running any social media sweepstakes campaign, marketers first should familiarize themselves with the conceptual and legal need-to-knows behind social media promotion. This will ensure that a sweepstakes has the proper foundation on which to build a viral component.

Viral components stem from the economics behind a standard sweepstakes. Breaking it down, consider that at its core a sweepstakes asks consumers to commit to a brand using an incentive as bait.

dressbarn sweepstakes

In this Facebook offer, dressbarn uses the chance to win a $50 gift card as bait for customers to provide their email addresses.

Like fishing, additional bait for marketers (incentives) costs more money, but allows you to reel in more consumers. However, unlike bait fishing, each subsequent catch returns less value. Each subsequent consumer commits to a brand less out of a desire to spend money and more to redeem the incentive. In economics lingo, each incremental consumer returns lower and lower incremental value for the brand.

Eventually, the incentive required to lure additional consumers exceeds the corresponding benefit to the brand. A marketer’s goal for a sweepstakes then is to find the point of inflection that maximizes value created at a given cost of incentives.

For those graphically inclined:

base case

Now, here’s where adding a viral component to a sweepstakes changes the game. From a brand-recognition and brand-equity perspective, when consumers actively share a campaign with others, they effectively increase the incremental value they can provide to the brand. This increases the profit of the sweepstakes campaign:

equity and recognition

From a customer-acquisition standpoint, when consumers actively recruit others to participate in a campaign, the number of customers recruited at a given incentive level increases. Because consumers value each other’s opinion, they will be more inclined to commit to a brand for reasons related to purchasing (as opposed to signing up to receive an incentive):

equity and recognition acquisition

Implementing a Viral Sweepstakes Strategy

The trick then is to choose a viral sweepstakes strategy that maximizes the value created from increased brand recognition, brand equity and customer acquisition.

Here are three examples of ways that brands are currently running Facebook viral sweepstakes, in order of effectiveness (in my opinion):

#1: Soft Share

With a soft share, consumers receive a reminder that they should share with their friends and family. On one hand, this is the least invasive encouragement possible. On the other hand, only those truly impassioned consumers will be prompted to extend themselves on behalf of the brand.

social sharing dnd

Dunkin Donuts uses a non-monetary incentive to encourage people to passively share evidence of participation via social share options.

#2: Direct Share

The direct share integrates the share call to action directly into the ad. The advantage here is that the share call to action takes on more of the character of the brand.

budweiser post to facebook

Budweiser uses a non-monetary incentive to encourage passive sharing of content via Facebook.

#3: Incentivized Share

With an incentivized share, brands put more responsibility on consumers to actively participate. The benefit is that consumers will go out of their way to recruit more participants.

pizzahut incentivized share

Pizza Hut uses a monetary incentive to push consumers to actively share content via Facebook and direct messaging.

Putting these campaigns back into the context of our graph, you can see tradeoffs among the different strategies. The soft and direct shares rely on others to expand the profit bubble. The incentivized share takes an active role in expanding the profit bubble.

The correct tactic depends on how actively engaged consumers are already (e.g., perhaps Budweiser feels that its audience is particularly motivated) and the incentive (e.g., free cinnamon sticks requires a bigger push than larger incentives).

One other thing to note: the incentive to share for both the soft and direct shares actually decreases the original person’s chance of winning. In my mind, this is evidence of using technology for technology’s sake instead of with the end user in mind.

The Importance of Customer Relationship Management

In an earlier Social Media Examiner post about running successful social media contests, author Ben Pickering does an excellent job of laying out the different types of consumers relevant to a social media contest:

  • Spectators: view shared media but don’t participate
  • Joiners: view and participate in shared media
  • Creators: view, participate and create shared media

Within the context of a brand running a sweepstakes, these designations are important because they can change over time. However, it’s only through the creation of a customer relationship management strategy that marketers can track these changes over time and use them to their advantage.

Sweepstakes are not the end-all be-all between brand and consumer; rather they are a launching pad or enthusiasm generator within the context of creating customer lifetime value over time.

Which brings me to one last viral sweepstakes example:

#4: Another Incentivized Share

sugarbowl viral sweepsmobile

Participants in Sugar Bowl's sweepstakes can increase their chances of winning by referring others.

Here is a case where each subsequent participant in the sweepstakes has a clear incentive to refer others without upsetting their own chances of winning. The tricky part is that such a contest requires a CRM system (in this case, customer mapped to mobile phone number) to track each new entrant as either organic or referred.

On the positive side, you can now gain an understanding of various customer distinctions over time and reward those spectators or joiners who graduate toward the next level of brand engagement.

The Bottom Line

Marketers can increase the benefits they receive from a sweepstakes campaign if they include a viral component, which can increase brand recognition, brand equity and customer acquisition. However, the benefits of viral components require a detailed understanding of a campaign’s goals, customers and resources.

Ultimately, social media marketing has one goal: to use interactive messaging to maximize customer lifetime value over time. A sweepstakes provides an excellent means to bring on new customers and enrich the brand experience for current ones. Pushing a sweepstakes beyond a one-off engagement using CRM only increases the value to the brand.

And the best part about viral marketing? Consumers do the marketing on behalf of the brand. A marketer’s dream realized.

What do you think? What are other ways to use customer engagement to increase brand value? Have you found any other viral sweepstakes campaign to be particularly successful? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.


Category: brand equity, Brand Recognition, curstomer acquisition, facebook sweepstakes, How To, kane russell, Marketing Campaign, social media contest, Social Media Marketing, social media promotion, social media sweepstakes, sweepstakes, sweepstakes campaign, viral campaign, viral sweepstakes /