Successful Blog

Why Facebook Contests Really Do Work!

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By John Boudreau

Everyone likes to win prizes and contests, especially through social media. These days, you are most likely communicating with your customer online more than you do in person. Has your business taken advantage of this? Not only are contests a great way to community build, but they also help your business show it cares about your audience. According to industry statistics, over 1 billion people are on Facebook. Knowing this, now more than ever is the time to get on board with Facebook contests. However, understanding what it takes to grow your fan base from zero to 700 takes time and patience, as well as a great marketing strategy.

Proven Results

We have seen contests gain traction on Facebook through creative, innovative ideas, which also involve different partnerships. For proven results, here are some examples you can use for inspiration:

Partee Insurance

This California insurance agency runs a game of Hangman every Wednesday from their Facebook page. How do they do this? Throughout the entire day, the staff promotes the contest, and at the end, the winner receives a stuffed cow named Cee Cee the Cow, who is the mascot of Partee Insurance! By conducting this type of contest, the agency has increased their following to well above 800 likes. However, this didn’t happen overnight or from luck. The team works hard to engage their customers on a weekly basis as well as remain creative with the words they select for the game. The consistency of this contest contributed to its success, in addition to the prize being a brand related item, which helped to further promote awareness throughout the community.

Weimer Group

The Weimer Group created strong local partnerships and incorporated those relationships into a contest. During the holiday season, the team set up a 12-week, 12-gift giveaway program, all involving local prizes. In order to run the contest, the agents used an easy promotion application. The first partner promoted was free and then the rest were $15 per promo. In the first week of the campaign, the Group was able to help one partner gain 70 “likes” in only a few days!

Fans had to enter their name, email, and “like” the page of the “partner of the week” in order to win a prize through a raffle drawing. What took the contest to the next level was how the winner was announced. The Weimer Group made personal videos for each winner, explaining exactly what the prize entailed. The dedication and appreciation the agency shows to their local partners and clients reveals how important consistency, promotion, and engagement are to a quality contest.

Rules and Regulations to Follow

So how did these agencies turn ideas into reality? They first had to follow rules and regulations established by Facebook. Failure to abide by these rules when running a contest could cause it to end before it even begins. Some of the terms and conditions are listed below:

  • If you use Facebook to administer a promotion, you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion.
  • If you are not sure if your promotion complies with the laws, seek out help from a professional.
  • Contests must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App.
  • Promotions must include an acknowledgment that the promotion is in no way sponsored by or associated with Facebook and disclosure that the participant is providing information to you and not to Facebook.
  • You must not condition entry upon the user liking a Wall post, commenting, or uploading a photo on a Wall. In addition, do not use the Like button as a voting mechanism.

Helpful Apps to Invest In

With so many rules to follow and not a lot of experience, the stress of organizing an event could be heightened. However, to help you remain calm, you can use approved applications. The following includes apps which vary in price and functionality, but all of them make it easier to run a contest and obey the rules:

  • Easypromos (Free)
  • Wildfire (ranges from $25-$250 and $3-$5 per day)
  • Offerpop (cost of this app goes by the number of fans your page has; less than 100 fans, it is free to use)
  • Static HTML (Free)

Put Yourself Out There

With an understanding of the steps to take to run a viable Facebook contest, now you can work on engagement. Your goal should be to get your audience excited and interested in your contest, as well as your business in the process. Here are some tips to help you promote and execute your contest:

  • Offer a unique, enticing prize.
  • Social media is interactive, so your contest must be fun and entertaining. No one wants to participate in a boring game. Some good ideas to start with are photo or video contests.
  • When it comes to creating the rules, make sure they are clear, concise, and simple to follow.
  • Before, during, and after your contest, always promote it. Use all the resources you have at your disposal, including other social media outlets, your website, and blogs. You can also have your employees and partners spread the word.

Setting specific goals for your contest can help you remain true to your mission and business’ values. No matter what kind of prize you offer your customers, the fact that you were able to keep them engaged and energized is the biggest prize of all! Most importantly, have fun with the whole process, because no idea is too out of the box. Your audience will appreciate your efforts to reach out and understand their needs!

Author’s Bio: John Boudreau, COO and Co-Founder of Astonish, has been in the insurance marketing and technology business for nearly 10 years. He works closely with local insurance agencies across the country to understand what works and what doesn’t in an attempt to increase their share of the digital landscape through online marketing tactics and a robust customer relationship marketing tool. For more information on client results, visit Astonish’s list of business profile reviews. Before Astonish, Boudreau honed his problem-solving abilities while working as an environmental analytical chemist. He also founded Ion Marketing Group, a digital marketing company focused on the real estate industry. An avid musician, John plays the drums, the bass and the guitar.

Making Google+ Work for Your Business

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By Brittany Thorley

Google+ is fast becoming a vital part of social media marketing for businesses of all sizes, yet still many professionals are unsure about what the social platform can do for their company and how they can get started with a business-focused profile that gets their name and ethos out there.

Despite launching in 2011, Google+ has surpassed the active user numbers of Twitter making it the second largest social networking site in the world. Back in May 2013, Google+ reported a total of 500 million registered users worldwide and with 235 million of those users actively updating their circles and looking for interesting information on a personal and professional level, businesses that aren’t utilising this platform are inevitably missing out!

But for those unfamiliar with this platform, how can you get started? We have compiled the essential steps for getting started with Google+, plus a few more top tips on how to make the most out of the platform to boost business, extend your customer reach, and get your company noticed by the people who matter.

Getting Started

Setting up your business page with Google+ couldn’t be easier! But before you begin you must create a personal profile; from here you can create a page for your business by simply clicking ‘create a page’ in the right hand corner of your profile. Setting up a personal profile will also enable you to claim authorship to enable you to gain influence and build authority.

Google+ will take you through the process of setting up a business page step-by-step. You can add your business type, tagline, profile photo or logo, website URL, social links and company details to personalise your business profile and make it identifiable to your target audience.

Posting on Google+

Once you have completed your profile, you can start adding existing contacts and posting to your profile. Like Facebook, you can share pictures, videos and links to let potential customers and clients get to know your business. When posting always think about what you want to achieve and how you want your brand to be portrayed in the public domain and your specific industry. Ensure all posts are as engaging as possible and convey your business’ unique selling propositions (either directly or indirectly) as well as occasionally promoting your products or services. In addition to this, keep posts personal and authentic.

Know Your Customer

When it comes to launching any social media marketing campaign, how well you know your customer can make or break your efforts, so make sure you are prepared and incorporate your customers’ wants and needs into your social media objectives. Before you start posting, devise a few ideas about what images, videos and links will be of interest to your customers and what offers and information will get them talking about your business.

Get Your Timing Right

It’s not just what you post that can affect your campaign’s success, it’s also when you post to your Google+ account. The peak times for sharing on Google+ are from 11am to 2pm and 7pm to 10pm Eastern US time, so focus your efforts on posting at these particular periods.

Use #Hashtags

Like Twitter, Google+ supports the use of hashtags to give you the exposure you need to the right followers. Insert simple and relevant hashtags in every post to ensure your social media interactions are targeted and sharable – who knows you may be trending very soon!

Author’s Bio: Brittany Thorley handles the social media and marketing activities for a range of businesses, including the Personal Statement Service, a student-focused company that provides writing advice and personal statement examples.

Thank you Brittany! Those are some great tips.
I’d add that the Google+ community, in particular, tends to reward exclusive content and well-thought-out articles, rather than simply posting a link to your blog posts or other social media updates.

Rosemary

4 Precious Content Marketing Lessons from Startups

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By Tracy Vides

Startup founders have lives that are anything but normal: they have to deal with uncertain markets. Their ideas are vulnerable to deep dive into oblivion any time, they suffer scarcity of resources, and they are perennially strapped for cash. Startup founders put their soul – along with themselves – through rigorous (almost insane) time schedules.

A considerable amount of energy, passion, love and work goes into a startup, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails. Although digital marketing, including content marketing, goes with the overall scheme of things, while running a startup, we’ll ignore that for a moment and consider content marketing separately.

So, what happens when you bring startup culture to content marketing? How does the way you do content marketing change when you bring in the ethos that startups are known for?

Here are some lessons from startups that you can apply to content marketing, blogging, and digital marketing in general:

Don’t Fall for the Single Founder Mistake

Paul Graham, author and founder of Y Combinator, lists out some mistakes most startups make, one of the first of which is to have a single founder.

Very few successful startups have just one founder. Google, Apple, Oracle are all examples of companies with humble starts and certainly more than one founder.

Having one founder, Paul believes, is a vote of no confidence. Even if that wasn’t the case, growing a startup is incredibly hard for one person. Startups need a way to weed out bad decisions, and a one-founder startup has no checks and balances in that regard. Having a team spreads out the hard work, keeps stupid decisions in check, and to brainstorm for more ideas.

Lesson: Content development, likewise, isn’t a one-person effort. Whether you are a business looking to develop content for marketing, a content marketer working on various types of content for other businesses, or even a content developer or freelance writer, you’ll need a team.

Working with professional writers, in-house content development teams, and collaborating with experts is a great way to give your content development work a boost. Content marketing is best achieved with collaboration – no matter how you choose to do it.

Starting Up without Research is Doomed

Startups are glamorous. That doesn’t take away the grueling work behind running one, though. According to Toby Ruckert of Stuff.co.nz, “research” is a fundamental building block for a startup. Technically, it’s called “validating ideas”, in startup circles. You’d go out to your potential customer base, launch surveys, brainstorm with your team, and gather material from the web, universities, or libraries.

To know is at the core of a successful startup.

Lesson: Content marketing is impossible without research. Of course, you can hash out trite content but by now, you know that it won’t work for your business. Include research into every piece of content you develop.

Know your readers, and gather analytics that matter to you. If you are approaching other bloggers, find out everything you can about them and their websites. Digging into site owners’ personal details and preferences is easy – you can get to know a lot from their About and Contact pages, and social media profiles.

However, to be a true online detective, you need to know their pain and pleasure points with regard to their day-to-day blog operation. You can use Whois to uncover site owner and administration information, whoishostingthis.com to find their hosting details, SEMRush to know more about visitor traffic and how they get it, and so on.

Startups are Hard

Uncrunched.com has a post with this simple message: If you are not comfortable with the fact that startups are hard work and that a lot of time and sacrifice will go into it, you should get yourself a job.

Startups are hard in more ways than you can imagine. Chris McCann’s post reveals the sweat, blood, and tears involved in a startup founder’s life.

Yet, Kevin Ready, a contributor at Forbes.com, thinks that the hard startup life is good. Technology helps you overcome some hurdles. The Internet makes it easy to hire people (either full-time or on contractual basis), and the availability of affordable tools make it easier to launch a startup today.

However, if you quit whining, embrace the startup life, and do it right, you make history.

Lesson: Too many business owners and marketers think that you have to “make time” for content marketing.

Correction: Drop everything else (except running your business) and go all out at content marketing. Quit whining that it takes a humongous effort, time, money and energy to develop great content, to get good content published as guest blogs, to work on social media, to create videos, and to publish all other sorts of content.

Content marketing – when you do it right – has phenomenal payoffs.

The Value is in Speed, Not Money

Tanya Prive of Forbes gave some convincing reasons why startups succeed, some of which were speed, efficiency, and the rush a startup works with.

Startups also succeed because they provide value while keeping the pace of work fast and efficient. Startups, however, don’t succeed because a VC firm funds them. They don’t succeed just because they have capital.

In fact, most startups don’t even have access to any sort of capital from sources such as banks and VC firms. That’s why it’s not surprising so many of them now turn to crowd-funding options such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Lesson: Traditional marketing spoiled us into thinking that if we had access to cash and an unending stream of funds, we could market and promote our way to success.

All you had to do was to buy media space and bomb the market with as much advertising as your money could buy.

Today, consumers don’t trust traditional advertising much. Instead, they trust their own social networks and their preferred sources of advice online (blogs and publications). Content marketing is all about making the right information available to seed consumers’ hunger for information.

As a brand, you need credibility, trust, social proof, and commercial love. Content marketing has to achieve all of that and not to fill up the Internet with more trash.

To achieve speed and to provide value with content marketing, you have to make a splash, no matter what your current state of available resources is like. Danny Iny of Firepole marketing did just that with his super-powered guest blogging campaigns targeted major blogs. All he had was to use his skill in writing and a burning desire with a willingness to put in the work to get his guest blogs out. His outreach success led him to develop a popular report called Engagement from Scratch.

Content marketing is an overall endeavor to get the word out, to generate trust, to marshal goodwill and to amass social proof. It’s the key to what is now known as Inbound Marketing.

Your content marketing defines you. It makes you money. It tells the world who you are and why you are in business. It convinces, persuades, inspires, and informs.

How do you approach content marketing? How important is it for your business? Which of the lessons do you think you can pick up and run with?

Author’s Bio: Tracy Vides is a content creator and marketer, who loves to blog about subjects as diverse as fashion, technology, and finance. She’s always raring to have a discussion on startups and entrepreneurship. Say “Hi” to her on Twitter @TracyVides. You can also find her on G+ at gplus.to/TracyVides.

Promote Your Events with Compelling Copy

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By Jessica Davis

You may have heard the popular phrase “if you build it, they will come.”

This is quite untrue in case of organizing events and meetings. It doesn’t matter how well you have organized an event if you are unable to effectively market it. Lots of organizations and groups fall short in this regard only because they send out simple announcements listing the time, date, speaker, and location of an event.

You, as an event organizer, have to realize there is a lot of competition out there, and you need to convince prospective attendees that you are worth their money and time.

Importance of a compelling headline

A compelling headline holds the key to catching the eye of prospective attendees. A simple headline, such as “2013 Annual Conference” fails to grab the attention of any reader. It may describe what your event is about, but cannot really be called a headline. A compelling headline is one that incites the reader to learn more about the event. In terms of marketing, it should typically promise some benefits. For instance – ‘Master the art of social media in three hours;’ or ‘Touch new horizons with your business.’

If the event has only a single speaker, then their program title can be used as the headline, if it satisfies the criteria given above. Multi-speaker events will require you to present the overall benefits for the reader in the headline.

Event details

Location, time, and date

Be sure to make this information easy to locate. In fact, mention it twice at least on the web page or brochure. A map with parking information and driving directions is a nice addition too. If applicable, you should also mention the transportation and hotel information. Other than these, mentioning savings such as discounted rates on group bookings can also help your cause.

Program outline

Give a general idea of the things taking place in the event. You should include the schedule, such as networking time, meals, or other important details for multi-day or all day long meetings.

Attending benefits

This is the essence of the marketing message. This topic explains to the prospective attendees why they should invest their valuable resources in coming to your event. You have to be specific while promising results.

Presenter bios

The biographical information about speakers at the event establishes their credibility. Potential attendees probably won’t care about the bio of the speaker anyway, but not including this section may lead them to doubt the event’s credibility.

Registration information

Be sure to make the registration process painless. If the registration form is too confusing or very exhaustive, chances are potential attendees will simply reject the event due to the formalities involved in filling the registration alone. The registration instructions should be easy to follow, clear, and simple.

Highlight special features and incentives

Apart from the speakers, include other highlights of the event. This can include local tours, autograph session, trade show, banquet, concert or show, live demo, organized activities, and so forth.

Testimonials are other powerful marketing elements that are generally overlooked by event organizers. You should use two different testimonial types: one from speakers, and other from past attendees. These should preferably be result oriented, and the more, the merrier.

Finally, a call to action should conclude the whole sales presentation. Without it, prospective attendees probably won’t take any action apart from reading the whole presentation that you so painstakingly produced. Be clear at the end with lines such as “Register from this link”; “Fill form given below”; “Now!” Today”; or “Fax to this number”.

Author’s Bio: Jessica Davis is a Content Strategy Specialist with Godot Media – a leading content marketing firm. She has years of experience working closely with online businesses, helping them refine their marketing strategy through optimum use of content. Her other interests besides online content strategy, internet marketing and search engine optimization are, technology, sports and fashion.

How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Business

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By Brittany Thorley

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but can the latest social media phenomenon used by a host of celebrities, budding photographers and snap happy users alike be the key to driving traffic to your website?

The social media sphere has become awash with image-based websites like Pinterest, whilst other social favourites like Facebook and Twitter are making it easier to upload and share your favourite snaps. While 54% of major brands use Instagram for promotional reasons, many growing businesses don’t consider using Instagram to market their products or services.

Using Instagram for business

Getting Started with Instagram

Setting up an Instagram business account and incorporating this social favourite into your social media marketing strategy couldn’t be easier and its features ensure you can get and stay connected with existing and potential customers and clients in a fun and frivolous way that still has your business ethics at its heart.

Instagram takes you through the setting up of your profile step-by-step, covering everything from choosing an account name and filling out your bio to adding other social networks and getting started with their photo editor and sharing features. When deciding on your Instagram account name, we recommend using a name similar or exactly the same as your Twitter handle to make it easier for fans and potential customers to find and follow you on multiple platforms. We would also advise downloading the app to make maintaining and updating your Instagram account less of a chore and more spur of the moment!

Instagram also hosts its own ‘Instagram for Business’ blog, which is regularly updated with tips, news and examples of how other businesses, both big and small, use Instagram to drive traffic and subsequently boost sales.

Striking the Right Balance between Fun and Business

A successful Instagram business profile has a mixture of fun images and business-focused additions; we would advise telling the story behind your brand to make it an engaging and fun journey for your customers that still essentially means business. Use the stories of your workforce to add a personal approach. Instagram has a number of helpful options for tracking engagement and the success of individual images, so test the water in the first few months and see what your audience likes best.

More than Images

In addition to uploading and sharing images, you can also use videos to market your business identity and values. These videos can be embedded into your on-site blog and shared via your other social media platforms to create engaging content, cultivate a following and extend your reach.

Be a Trend Follower and a Trendsetter

Instagram uses the same system as Twitter and uses hashtags (#) so that users can follow trends and be a part of the wider community. Keep an eye on what’s trending and use this to influence what you post, and tell your own story with your own hashtags. Use Instagram’s like and comment features to connect on a more personal level with new followers, ‘like’ other users’ images and engage with them with genuine comments.

How Often Do I Post to Instagram?

Like Pinterest, you don’t have to post on Instagram on a daily basis. In fact too much posting can actually do more harm than good and will over-occupy the news feeds of your followers and lead to quite a few ‘no follows’. Instead use your profile to post whenever you feel that the content is a valuable addition and aim to inspire potential customers and clients with your updates – remember with Instagram and any social media marketing strategy, the focus should be on quality, not quantity.

How are you using Instagram for your business? Post your account handle here, if you’d like to share.

Author’s Bio: Brittany Thorley is a social media marketing expert at Think Big Comms, a PR agency with a difference that specialises in ethnic marketing strategies.

Niche Marketing: Creative or Creepy?

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By Barbara Fowler

Niche-marketing: Creative or Creepy? It depends.

Yesterday I got a package in the mail. A mysterious package from Klout. I opened it up and low and behold, it contained three new products sent to me on a complimentary basis. They were VITA-K for “age spots”, VITA-K for “crow’s feet” and VITA-K for “deep facial lines” I was selected to receive these products because of my Klout score of 56, not because of my age (I just turned 60) and hopefully not because of some new “facial recognition software” that identified me as someone in great need of these products.

I signed up for Klout over a year ago. For those of you not in marketing or not familiar with it, Klout purports to measure my “influence” on the web and in social media. It gives each of us a score between 1-100 with 1 being no influence-basically incognito on the web (like my husband Tim, without a LinkedIn, Facebook or any other social account-although he does now have e-mail) and 100 (Barack Obama is a 99)

So, I am above the middle. in fact, somewhere in the 75-90 percentile. That is really not important because this post is about niche-marketing, not about Klout.

But think about what this skincare company did to market their new product.

They went to Klout and asked for people above a certain score. Then they must have also asked for some other things-gender, age, possible income, geographic location etc to further target their offering. I don’t know the specifics. I actually have no relationship to this company or this product. But I represent a “buyer persona”. More importantly, they think, based on my score, that I am more likely to talk about receiving this product and trying it. They don’t know if I will like it or not. Or maybe, they cross-referenced their offering with some sort of other weird algorithm that says I usually only review products I really like. (My mother taught me “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.”)

In the past, to gain a market, this company would have considered magazine ads in places like, “Good Housekeeping” or “The Ladies Home Journal” or maybe “AARP “ magazine. They would have looked at TV ads for “Golden Girls” or “The Rockford Files”. How much would that have cost? That was marketing back then.

This is marketing today. It has changed. First, because there is so much information available on the web so I can do all of the research I want in advance of a purchase. And second because of the availability of data. Instead of marketing to a broad range of people-like all of those who read a magazine-companies can market to a much smaller group of people who are more likely to buy their product. The art and science of acquiring a customer base has been reinvented.

And this is not just about this product. A recent WSJ article shared how the Weather Company (formerly the Weather Channel) was helping companies pick their advertising spots. The Weather Co, supplies weather information to several smart phone apps. And now, it uses its data to help companies advertise. So, for example, if a woman is checking her weather app in Boston and it calls for rain, the advertisement shown might be for an anti-frizz product for her hair. If it calls for very hot temperatures in Atlanta, then the advertisement might be for a sale on air conditioning units. Micro-targeting then is not just based on buyer personas but also on many other variables. Effective targeting can really reduce costs and increase revenue

So, what about me? Was this effective? When I told people I had received the anti-aging product this morning, several asked if I was offended or if I though it was creepy? Not me. I was intrigued. I have already tried them and although I can’t be sure yet, I think that I might pass for no more than 59.

Please share your comments below.

Author’s Bio: Barbara Fowler is a CMO and Partner with Chief Outsiders in the Charleston, S. C. area. Follow her on twitter at @barbfow50 or contact Barbara at 908-956-4529 or email at bfowler@chiefoutsiders.com.