Author Archives: Hannah

Hannah

About Hannah

Hannah is a social media professional with a passion for great content, good beer and the outdoors. She is currently a marketing associate at Votigo, a social marketing platform powering social for some of the world’s biggest brands.

Customer Q & A Session with Robin Leedy & Associates

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Robin Leedy & Associates is a Votigo customer who launched client Conair’s “Make Waves, Get Raves” summer-themed Facebook Sweepstakes to promote the brand’s featured appliances to achieve beach wave looks every day. The giveaway ran for 10 days total, with one winner chosen per day. Each winner received a beach chic prize pack with Conair hair styling appliances and brushes, scünci hair accessories, a plush beach towel, nail polish, water-proof mascara, and SPF makeup – all packaged in a cute beach tote.

Here at Votigo, we love to not only share successful campaigns, but also goals, metrics and best practices of our customers so that you may recognize the benefits of running social media promotions.

V: Did you have goals going into the campaign?

RLAPR: Our goal was to increase theConair Facebook fan base among targeted hair enthusiasts while promoting several featured Conair hair appliances for summer styles. The products and timing were very relevant to the season and the current/expanding Conair social community.  We were also able to cross-promote this giveaway on the scünci Facebook page , which is also a Conair Corporation brand, allowing for more targeted exposure of the giveaway and messaging.

V: How do you measure success- including the Facebook metrics and whatever else you look at?

RLAPR: We measure the success of the campaign through several items. We take into account the number of entries, how many new Facebook fans we received, how many shares we received for the Facebook giveaway posts, how many people were talking about the page, and how many blog posts we received mentioning the giveaway. We never do a giveaway for the sake of a giveaway…it all MUST relate to the brand’s messaging and social goals, so each giveaway works harder than just a few posts on the Facebook wall.

V: How has the response been?

RLAPR: Our response rate is very high and exceeded our goals for such a quick promotion.  We do not like giveaways on Facebook to run for long periods of time.  We don’t want to take consumers out of the purchase cycle forever because they think they might win the product instead.

V: How did you start integrating social media and how successful have you been to date?

RLAPR: Robin Leedy & Associates has been integrating social media since 2007. We’ve been very successful with working with thousands of bloggers, creating and managing clients’ Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube channels, creating and distributing videos, and launching numerous contests/sweepstakes, etc.  Like a giveaway, social media is not put in a silo. It is a mix within the brand’s marketing efforts because it then makes all the dollars go further.

V: What is your most successful social marketing project / campaign / effort to date?

RLAPR: Honestly, that would be like picking our favorite kid.  We have had many successful social marketing projects and their budgets were very varied.  One of our more successful and low cost ones was for Sea-Band anti-nausea bands  where the brand was ONLY doing social for our project period we could see its positive impact on sales, web traffic, etc.  Many times, our clients are doing a mix of marketing efforts, so it is hard to exactly measure the role of social media alone. We did bring the Softlips Facebook page to the one million fan mark earlier this year, and that was very special for us as a small agency…and we did it on a very efficient spend, as well.

V: Favorite tools & keys to success?

RLAPR: As far as social giveaways, our key to success is to make sure that all of the giveaways we run for our clients are done through Facebook sanctioned apps like Votigo. There are a lot of “illegal” giveaways that are done on Facebook, such as LIKES to a post or random comments chosen as winners. That doesn’t screen for age (COPPA rules), and creates privacy/legal issues.  If you are going to use sweeps and contests to market your Facebook page, do them in the way that protects your client vs. exposes them to legal issues or those that contradict Facebook policy.  Our overall key to success is to stay abreast of trends not only in the social/digital landscape, but the consumer mindset.  If you never heard of the term ZMOT, Google it.

V: How did you first find out about Votigo and what specific promotions have you run to date?

RLAPR: We found out about Votigo when we were searching for a more graphically-pleasing user interface for FB sweeps than our previous provider.  In the past several months, we’ve run more than 20 sweepstakes and contests for a variety of clients with Votigo and have been really happy with the set-up, costs, functionality and design.

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words…or Likes

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Generating quality content is a hot topic in the social media space for brands and agencies alike. They are constantly evolving their social media marketing strategy to better engage their current audience and attract new fans on Facebook. In an era where content is king, it’s hard to determine which specific type of content will receive the most engagement. This may be the reason why we see such a vast variety of content posts; brands are testing to see which type receives the most “likes,” comments and shares. What is your opinion?

While Facebook users are receptive to different types of content, various studies have shown that the primary media commanding the most attention and interaction is photos. A picture is of one of the simplest and most effective ways a brand can capture attention because it is more visually appealing than a status update or link post. Think about it this way, when you scroll through your newsfeed what usually captures your attention and makes you pause for reaction? PHOTOS. It allows for a more immediate emotional reaction from users on Facebook thus urging them to engage by commenting, liking or sharing your post.

Now that brands are aware of this fact, they can and should use this to their advantage! Here are some great ideas to kick start your efforts:

Try posting a unique photo with a question attached. This will drive dialogue with your fans and encourage them to interact and share with their friends! Behind the scenes photos are also great – they give fans a view into the personal side of your business. Aspirational photos and product photos are also great options for driving engagement. Try out different types of photos and see what your audience responds to.

If you’re looking to increase engagement even further, consider running a Facebook photo contest. A photo contest is a great way to not only interact with your fans directly, but to also increase your fan base, acquire data and receive great images for use in future marketing efforts. A unique theme and/or great prize will ensure entries and drive engagement! Learn more about how to run a Facebook contest.

So, if you are wondering how to increase engagement on your Facebook page, trying using photos! Product photos, aspirational photos and behind the scenes photos are all popular choices. To really engage fans and grow your social presence, run a photo contest – your fans will love to browse entries and they will have an incentive to share their photos as well.

 

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Like-Gating: Tips for a Great Design

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When running a Facebook contest or sweepstakes, one important consideration for brands and agencies to keep in mind is whether or not to have a Like-Gate. Like-Gating, also referred to as Fan-Gating or Like-Wall, is a low barrier to entry requiring that a user first “Like” a brand’s Facebook page before they can access certain content on that page. This is a feature that will simultaneously increase your fan base and get your social marketing messages onto fans’ newsfeeds!  There are several types and styles of like-gates that brands can use. It is an optional feature that may seem like a no-brainer for most brands, but it simply depends on what the brand’s overall goals are.

Once you’ve decided like-gating is for you, you need to start thinking about the design of the like-gate. Something to keep in mind is while simple in concept and beneficial to fan growth; a poor like-gate graphic can seriously confuse and hinder fans from entering your promotion. Not to worry! Votigo is here to provide tips and best practices for customers who value like-gating and would like more information on the process and role that it plays.

 

 

 

A quality Like-Gate graphic image should contain the following:

  • A dynamic/unique/inspiring custom image that captures your brands personality and the theme of the campaign.
  • A call-to-action! This is a very important because you want to clearly define what the user has to do in order to enter the promotion. If you simply have a beautiful graphic image with no instruction such as, “Like us to enter this promotion!” then the entrant will be confused and possibly not enter all together. So, make sure to include instructional text on your custom image.
  • Take advantage of the Timeline Optimization and design your Like-Gate custom image to be the full 810px. Votigo’s platform allows for the max file size of 5MB and supported formats include: jpg, jpeg, gif. The platform allows you to preview the image before it is  published.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                It is important to keep in mind that although Facebook Timeline did away with default landing tabs, the fundamentals have not changed at all. Brands can still promote their campaigns by directing their audience directly to their unique app url. Votigo further simplified this process for you with our recent platform release.You now have the ability to schedule posts and tweets about the campaign from your Votigo dashboard to social network channels and direct people straight to that unique app URL. When you have a like-gate attached to the campaign, then you are driving users to like your page. This is a win-win! So, if you are a brand or business who is focused on engaging fans on Facebook—why not try a promotion? You can add a Like-Gate to your unique app and simultaneously build your fan base. Visit our website at www.votigo.com for more details or create an account and start engaging your fans today!
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Customer Q & A – Successful Photo Contest

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Here at Votigo, we love to chat one-on-one with our customers to get their feedback and insight on the benefits they received from utilizing promotions in their social media marketing strategy. While each brand might have different goals and approaches, they all recognize the benefits from running social promotions.

Steve Oberman at Flavorus is a Votigo customer who designed a UGC Photo Contest on our platform and received phenomenal user engagement and submission. Their philosophy is the belief that life is better when you go out and experience new things and take chances. Running with that philosophy, he created a “Get Out There” Photo Contest that engaged his fans by encouraging them to upload a photo of them going out and enjoying life in every sense! The photo that received the most votes from other Flavorus Facebook users received a pair of 3-day passes to Electric Daisy Carnival 2012 in Las Vegas. His promotion is considered a true success and not just because it received over 800 entries. We wanted to pick Steve’s brain on what his goals, metrics, and overall process was so that we could share it with you all. Thankfully he was kind enough to oblige.

Votigo: Did you have goals going into the campaign?

Steve: Yes.  This contest is a part of a broader plan to revamp the tone and purpose of our social media strategy, to make it more conversational and engaging.  My main goal for the contest was to increase our number of “likes” on our Facebook page.  To accomplish that, I could have just done a like-gate contest and run it as a sweepstakes, but since the prize is 4 three day passes to a huge music festival (a $2000 dollar value) I thought that people should have to work a little harder than just liking a page!  That’s when it turned into a photo contest.  My secondary goal was to incorporate our company’s core value: Life is better when you go out and experience new things,” so that’s how the theme for the contest evolved.  Other goals included encouraging our followers to be more interactive with our social media and to get people talking about the contest and our page.

Votigo:   How do you measure success- including the Facebook metrics and whatever else you look at?

Steve: If we can significantly increase our “likes” and get our customers talking about our client’s events, then I would consider the promotion a success.

Votigo:   How has the response been?

Steve: The response has been awesome.  I set the contest for an 8 week run and by the beginning of the third week we have over 500 photos submitted and 4500 votes.  Our “likes” have doubled from about 50 a day to over 100 per day, and social interactions and engagement on our page have increased dramatically.  People are starting to campaign for votes on their own Facebook pages which of course send their friends to us as well.

Votigo:    How did you start integrating social media and how successful have you been to date?

Steve: We’re a tech company at heart, so when I joined the team late last year, the social media assets were pretty well developed.  It’s been an incredibly useful tool for us to talk directly to our users and answer customer questions.

Votigo:    Favorite tools & keys to success?

Steve: World class customer service and intuitive ticketing software that doesn’t crash is the key to our success.

Votigo:    What is your most successful social marketing project / campaign / effort to date?

Steve: We are lucky enough to sell tickets to some amazing, world class events, so we have access to great tickets as prizes which make our contest and giveaways extremely effective.  We also just launched our Facebook ticketing app which allows people to buy and sell tickets directly from Facebook, which takes advantage of the social aspect of events.

So there you have it folks! Fresh insight and words of wisdom from an experienced social media marketer who utilized a Facebook contest to engage his fans and drive brand exposure. If you are looking to integrate promotions or social engagement apps into your social media marketing strategy then please visit our website at www.votigo.com to get the details or try out our DIY tools for creating your own photo contest. It’s free to design and preview!




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How Promotions Influence Facebook Edgerank

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Facebook is a powerful social network that is ideal for spreading your content to a large, active audience. The goal, as many of you know is to be seen on people’s News Feeds. If you are blindly sending out massive amounts of relevant content and no one sees it, then there isn’t much point. Luckily for brands Facebook has shared their algorithm, EdgeRank for ranking content on Facebook and filtering what appears in the news feed. The algorithm consists of three components:

1. Affinity – The number of times 2 people (or a person and a page) have interacted

2. Weight – The number of times users have interacted (commented, liked) with the content in question

3. Time Decay – The time since the content was posted. Note that Facebook moves and changes very quickly, and your news feed, for example, never has content more than 24 hours old.

Now that you have an understanding of how Facebook ranks and filters content, it is time to strategize ways to get your content seen on your fans Facebook newsfeeds!

Producing compelling content is the key is to increasing affinity and weight so that your content will be seen by a larger audience on Facebook. Unfortunately, creating compelling and original content is often one of the biggest challenges marketers are faced with. While most marketers generally acknowledge that content is crucial, many aren’t sure what kind of content their audience will respond to.

Today’s digital audience is not receptive to content that resembles “sales talk.” The main problem with the sales pitch method is that it leaves no room for customer interaction. If you take the more interactive route with marketing content and a less sales-like one, then it creates more engagement and dialogue between you and your audience. Sales talk is one of the many reasons brands may become “unfollowed” or “unliked” on Facebook. So instead, try using a promotion to engage your audience and get great user generated content! Let your audience help tell your brand story and you’ll be rewarded with increased engagement and more visibility.

Running a contest or sweepstakes ensures that you have timely and interesting content to share with your audience. An enticing prize or a fun promotion is likely to be shared by your audience, and the more people share your content, the higher your Edgerank. Getting people to engage with your promotion on Facebook will help your brand increase visibility because your brand will appear more frequently in the news feed of your audience and their friends. A contest that incorporates voting will have multiple opportunities for participation, making it much more likely for your promotion to spread to a larger, extended audience of entrants and voters. A promotion also gives you something to talk about regularly, helping you stay top of mind and at the top of the news feed.

So, there you have it! Utilizing promotions is a great way to not only keep your audience engaged and incentivized, but also to improve the Edgerank of your day-to-day communications with them!

 

 

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