Wednesday 16 May 2012

7 Guidelines to Social Media Give Aways

Over the last few days I have been receiving messages on my inbox asking me to "like my comment on page X" or "kindly leave a comment on my photo on page Y". Over the last few months too I have noticed a massive exodus of fans from one page to the other simply because brand X is offering something! It's now becoming a headache to companies who want to have a loyal fan base on Facebook and maintaining the levels of engagement high in these business pages is getting tougher for administrators of these pages. Having been on both sides; one as a fan trying to win tickets to watch Avengers on Imax and on the other end as an admin so I always see the migration. It's phenomenal; more like the wildebeest migration in the Mara; it's so spectacular to watch by the way. When that happens off course and am left alone positing on the page I get innovative and come up with great ideas to hold these fans and get them to interact with the brand with no give aways.
Social Media give aways should always be about;
  • Deepening the brand – in a very subtle way, the give aways should ensure the fans understand something about the brand at the end of the challenge. Since you will be giving hampers or gifts on different days kindly ensure you do different questions to educate the fans. 
  • Deepening brand loyalty – Brand loyalty is the extent of the faithfulness of consumers to a particular brand, expressed through their repeat purchases, irrespective of the marketing pressure generated by the competing brands thus these give aways should be communicating to the fans 'that you can trust us to take care of your ABC etc etc. 
  • Deepening the experience – With a well done social effort you can connect your brand to the fans on a personal level. People will seek out a connection with you via social media . These give aways should make this relationship intimate and tighter.With that let me now give a few guidelines on giving goodies away on social media.
1. Be Random-
When you announce on Monday that you'll be giving away a phone on Friday at 10am; be sure fans will start trooping into the page at 9:50 am that day, the usual way people make it to a meeting 10 minutes before it starts! By doing that you will have high interactivity, reach and virality on Friday only. How about if you gave away the free stuff randomly or crazily during hours that fans don't expect anything? This helps hold fans onto your page for almost the whole day waiting for that hour,minute or day that you give away free stuff. It also helps you know who regularly checks your page!
2.Give Everyone a Chance to Win
Since you already know that Fan X & Y have a lot of influence on Facebook and regularly participate in challenges to win stuff on different pages; then in as much as you don't want them to win all the hampers you give away they will and share the 'loot'. So how do you do it then? It's always great when people keep coming back to your page to like comment Y by Fan X but you don't want to give away freebies to the same people over and over. How about if you gave the "1st person to comment" on an update free stuff? When fans see that they will keep checking your page. Next time make it more fun; say the 10th or 100th comment to be posted wins! That makes everyone on the page feel like they had a shot at the prize!
3.Make it Engaging/Reduce Push Marketing.
 Social media give aways should increase the warmth & interactivity on the page. If you execute a "come like my comment" kind of a challenge the people come and do just that. No more. Do challenges that encourage fan-fan interaction; making it a family. When you achieve that then fans keep coming back to the page for more fan-fan vibe! Push marketing is dangerous on social media because it kills engagement and increase the number of page un likes.
  4.Tie the rewards to the Brand
This is simple and straight to the point; If you are going to run these challenges then ensure that the rewards people get represent the brand values or communication. There's no point of giving the winners lunch vouchers to eat at joint Y while they won at Page X. By doing that you take the experience elsewhere. Say; you run the Sprite Kenya page; do not give winners shopping vouchers at Nakumatt or lunch coupons redeemable at KFC not unless the two have a B2B agreement where they mutually benefit. Give branded merchandise also for brand memorability.

5.Introduce Loyal Fans to the Brand
I picked this from Samsung Kenya's Facebook page and felt that they could have done it better. The majority of Kenyans access social media on 'normal' phones so most can't view or download apps. The majority of their loyal fans are definitely in this category; so they could have used the chance to introduce the brand to fans who Like, respect and trust the brand but can't afford it at the moment. That turns these fans into very loyal consumers and brand ambassadors.



6.Educate fans on the brand
By asking relevant questions about the brand you educate the fans about your brand. With the timeline; where you can list all the major milestones; why not ask fans to go do dig what the brand did in the 70's? When fans know more about the brand then they can talk about it; with more information then brand loyalty deepens.

7.Spell out the Terms and Conditions Clearly
There's nothing as tragic as running a challenge without clearly spelling out the terms rather well. A few fans may spot the loopholes to demand prizes but it gets worse when people do the right thing; what you had asked for and you realize that they are all eligible for the prize. Kindly spell out the T & C's so that you don't have hate posts on your wall or on the inbox ,fans un-liking the brand or worse still talking ill about it to their pals. Do you need any help with coming up a social media content plan?Then let's get social-Follow me on twitter @KenyanMarketer


No comments:

Post a Comment