Monthly Archives: November 2012

Votigo Offers Google+ Integration

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We believe in cross channel social marketing.

Why? Because your brand’s audience is uniquely spread across, and engaged with, an assortment of social networks.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Spotify, LinkedIn and more.

Launched late last year, Google+ has come on strong with a highly engaged audience, unique modes of communication, and carefully-designed integration with other Google offerings- from Gmail to YouTube to, of course, search.

Votigo is proud to be among the first social marketing platforms to integrate with Google+.  Starting today, you can:

  • Connect your Google+ brand page to your Votigo account
  • Publish posts, targets posts to your circles, moderate comments and measure engagement for your Google+ audience using Social Conversation Manager
  • Or post messages to help launch a Votigo-powered Promotion App using Promotions Messenger

Google+ is already integrated into your Votigo account if you are a SaaS customer, and in Promotions Messenger for self-service users.  To request an overview on using Votigo’s Google+ tools, click here.

Or just log-in here (or create a free account) and get started!

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Holiday Social Media Marketing: 5 Trends For Retail Brands

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Black Friday is in 4 days, kicking off the massive holiday season that makes the year for many retail brands.  Odds are, social marketing is a bigger part of your Q4 strategy this year than ever before.  Here are 5 big themes that will dominate holiday social media marketing campaigns for retailers in the remaining holiday weeks of 2012:

Social Launches:  New product introductions and sales events are a staple of Q4. They’re a great way to create buzz and generate customer interest through social marketing.  Watch for (and plan) product debuts or events on Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube.Brooks Running illustrates holiday social media marketing campaigns in 2012

Recognizing Great Customers: Even for brands with millions of customers- and definitely for boutiques and local businesses- there is a movement to recognize your best customers.  Loyalty programs,  membership clubs, even a Customer of the Day promotion. All are simple ways to earn repeat business. Social channels are a natural distribution channel for these programs.

Rewarding Social Engagement:  All evidence continues to show that consumers follow brands on social channels to earn an exclusive, an offer, a discount, a preview.  Retail brands are in prime position to capitalize.  Even for social followers who haven’t converted to customers yet, it is worth the effort to offer a unique opportunity through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and where ever you have followers.

In-Store Activation:  In retail, it’s all about the cash register.  Even as holiday spending shifts online, there is still no substitute to brick-and-mortar retailers for motivating the in-store experience.  A social promotion that results in a coupon, invitation or other store-driven event doesn’t need to be complex. But it will help convert social fans to visitors who can see your store environment, touch your products, experience your service and convert to new customers.

Mobile Enables Lasting Brand Engagement:  Most consumers will be using their smartphones gratuitously in the next 6 weeks. They’ll share wish lists, compare prices, pass along gift ideas and more, using photo, video, text and social updates.  Savvy brands will find unique ways to encourage and even facilitate those interactions. Even though the holiday season ends in a mere 6 weeks, try to find clever ways to weave impressions of happy customers into your ongoing brand storytelling.

For specific ideas and strategies to tackle each of these trends, click here.

 

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New Viral Features & Apps: DIY Update

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More than a year after launching self-service tools for social marketing on Facebook and mobile, we’re proud of the work we’ve done to package our innovative promotions, engagement apps and other tools into a cost-effective, DIY platform.  These tools are being used by start-ups, international brands, small businesses and agencies alike.  If we’ve learned one thing from working with these businesses, it is that there is an unending demand for more viral features, flexible tools and apps that help brands target and activate their growing social audiences.

Here are some of the latest and greatest additions to the Votigo self-service platform:

  • iFrame App: A flexible HTML app with a simple WYSIWYG editor that allows brands to customize a dynamic Facebook tab with multiple elements include text, images, video and other embeddable objects- including Votigo-powered promotions
  • Referral Incentive Sweepstakes: a simple, measurable feature that reinvents the classic promotion, making the sweepstakes app more viral by rewarding entrants who share the promotion with additional entries for each social friend they successfully refer to the sweepstakes
  • Promotions Messenger: A valued-added feature for scheduling posts about promotions to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ audiences. The posts are optimized for mobile users and customized with images and text
  • Mandarin: The 10th language available to self-service customers, who can now choose to launch promotions in English, Spanish, German, French, Portugese, Thai, Japanese, Korean, or Indonesian

Don’t take our word for it:

“Votigo’s new features are important for us in engaging our brand’s growing audience,” said Alexander Hagard Gronwall, Co-Founder and Marketing Director of Pambox, a Thailand-based beauty sample subscription service that recently ran a giveaway promotion in Thai that also tied in the L’Occitane brand. “For a start-up, it is critical for us to be able to target our audience right down to their language preferences.  The viral features are a bonus.”

“In launching our new travel goods web retail brand GoInStyle.com, we needed a way to quickly boast the number of engaged fans in our Facebook audience,” says Kristi Daeda, Internet Marketing Manager of GoInStyle.com.  “We devised a weekly giveaway with all the elements- from great prizes to low barriers to entry. The referral feature was critical, though, in getting our new-but-growing audience to share the promotion with other friends and likely potential customers.”

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Search for a Champion Video Contest

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Wondersauce, a digital agency, came together with Champion Spark Plugs to launch the Search for a Champion video contest. Champion utilizes Votigo’s API technology and integrates it into their own custom website.  The video contest encourages fans to enter a two-minute video for a chance to become one of the fifteen winners to receive a $5,000 Champion sponsorship and to compete for the grand prize sponsorship of $50,000.  Champion makes the deal even sweeter by rewarding the first 250 entrants with a free Champion Swag Bag including one 2013 Search for a Champion t-shirt, one Champion hat, one Search for a Champion decal and one Champion decal. The custom website shows pictures of each prize that comes in the bag so entrants can see what they will be winning.  The site also provides a spot to sign up to win a free weekly giveaway consisting of a free Champion product.

The custom online video contest is easy to navigate and well organized with information including tips on how to create a winning entry video, advice from the 2012 contest winners, and a contest timeline providing all of the important contest dates and deadlines.  Full-width, HD video capabilities are also included to push each video entry to the next level.  There is a video entry gallery that allows fans to browse the entries and gives entrants the tools to promote their entry all the way to the top by sharing entries on Facebook, posting to Twitter, and emailing friends.  This is especially important because the contest winners will be chosen by a series of public votes.  Fans can register as a voter and vote for their favorite videos.  Champion encourages fans to vote for their favorite racer by offering a voting sweepstakes prize. Two hundred lucky voters will receive a free Champion t-shirt and a poster autographed by Kevin Harvick.

Champion does great job engaging fans with their custom site and offers generous and relevant prizes to the fans with the best videos.  For more information on how to integrate API technology into a custom site for your contest contact us today!

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Should You Allow Voting In Your Contest?

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Running an online contest can help you engage fans and allow them to interact with your company and brand.  It is always important to use techniques that will encourage your fans to stay engaged with the contest even after they enter.  One way to do this is to consider allowing fans to vote on entries.  For some businesses this is a great idea because people are prompted to spread their entry to get more friends to vote, creating a viral effect. Voting can promote more word-of-mouth marketing for your brand because entrants will spread the word to gather votes. This will in turn create more awareness of the promotion and your brand.  Voting also gives the incentive for fans to continue to visit the promotion page and acts as another step in the online contest.  It is a fun way for fans to take an active role in the outcome of the contest.

When considering if your contest should be 100% decided by public vote, it is important to understand what this means for the contest and to be prepared to hand over control of the outcome to your fans.  Another way to incorporate public voting in your contest while still maintaining some control over the outcome is to create a round of voting to narrow down the entries that are in the running to win. After allowing this period of voting you can then create a panel of judges who will decide the winner.  This will still encourage fans to stay engaged and to share their entries virally, while also allowing your brand to maintain some control.

Some businesses may prefer not to allow fans to vote and instead rely on complete brand control.  This means that your brand or business will be in charge of the entire voting process.  A fun way to do this while keeping your fans interested is to incorporate a panel of expert judges that appeal to your target audience.  This will give your fans the incentive to stay tuned to the contest and to continue to visit the promotion site.

Each option above provides a great way for entrants to stay interested in your contest. It depends on what your particular brand goals are  concerning the promotion and it is important to consider which strategy will fit best with your company. For more information on Facebook Contests and fun ways to keep customers engaged contact us today!

Need help creating a Facebook contest or sweepstakes? Download our Free Guide!

        

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