JitterJam – Integrated Social Marketing Software for Business

Many of us try to be as “green” as we possibly can in our homes and in our personal lives. We may recycle, turn off lights in rooms we are not in or even rooms we are in, we buy Energy Star appliances and have some sort of water filtration system so we do not have to buy bottled water. If we can make these changes at home, how come when we walk into our workplace, all of that goes out the window?

We can bring our green lifestyles into the word place in cost effective and simple way. Here are a few simple ideas to bring green into your office environment.

1. Recycle. Bring a recycling bin into the office. Let your co-workers know that it is just for plastic and glass items. If there isn’t recycling pick-up at your company, have a different person volunteer each week to bring it to the local landfill or to be picked up by their recycling center.
2. Reduce the Use of Paper/Plastic Dishes and Utensils. One of the largest amounts of waste in offices are styrofoam coffee cups or bowls,  plastic utensils and paper plates. Start by promoting everyone to bring in their favorite mug from home that they can wash and take home everyday or simply leave at the office. Buy an inexpensive set of utensils and dishwear to leave in the office kitchen, with this make sure you have an office policy that states everyone must wash their dishes after using them or at the end of the day. There is not a magical fairy that comes and cleans the dishes at night after everyone leaves for the day. If there is a dishwasher in the kitchen make sure it is an Energy Star appliance but regardless if it is or not you should not be running it every day. If there is an office party and you have a large amount of dishes, fill it up and run it. Otherwise employees should still be washing their dishes after use.
3. Turn Off the Lights. In most offices the lights are constantly on regardless if anyone is in a particular room or not. If there is no one in the conference room, turn off the light. Make sure employees turn the lights off in the kitchen area when they leave the room; the kitchen or break room should only have a lot of traffic in the morning and during lunch and break hours so there is no need for the light to be on all day. For offices that have cubes and a lot of natural light, discuss possibly turning off some of the the overhead lights near the windows to save on energy. Also let employees know that they can purchase a desk lamp if they are in an area that does not get a lot of light, just make sure to provide them with CFL or LED light bulbs so you don’t negate the energy savings of reducing overhead lighting.
4. Shut Down Your Computer. This has an added bonus! Your computer is not in use at night so turn it off when you leave the office for the day. If it is attached to a power strip make sure you turn that off as well. Do you ever wonder why you have to reboot your computer everyday? That’s because it is running all night and possibly still have applications running. If you starting closing down all applications and shutting down your computer properly, your computer will most likely run faster and will be less inclined to crash. This may not seem like a lot of wasted energy, but every little bit helps.
5. Use Online Document Sharing Services. Why print out employee manuals or internal documents? Save them in a file sharing application such as Google Docs or Dropbox. Everyone that you give access to can then open up these items right on their desktop and they will always know where to find them. If you must print something try and print on both sides of the sheet of paper and refrain from using colored ink. Make sure you only buy recycled paper and if you printed something with a mistake, recycle the misprints or turn them into note paper.

These are five simple ways to promote a green environment in your office. They may seem like little things, but a little bit goes a long way when we are trying to protect and preserve our planet! What green practices have you implemented in your office?

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

Last week’s Creativity Coffee focused on Characteristics of Key Influencers—who they are and how you recognize them. But once you do identify key influencers and others you have engaged/desire to engage in social conversation on behalf of your brand or business, what kind of information should you be gathering on these people? Why is it important to do so? This was the topic of our last Creativity Coffee—Social Profiles.

1. What’s a Social Profile?
• Core component of a Social CRM. The social profile is the heart of a Social Consumer Relationship Management system. It provides a 360-degree view of the individual and enables the brand to target its communications, marketing, messaging, promotions and outreach based upon the wealth of information collected and summarized within the Social CRM.
• Collection of data versus usage. Each brand/company has their own view of an individual. The information gathered in a social profile is only as powerful as the way the brand uses it. Unique tagging and customization is critical to enabling the brand to create highly segmented groups for specific messaging, handling and engagement only if that brand decides to created targeted messages!
2. What are the components of a social profile?
• Contact points. Contact information is no longer limited just email or snail mail addresses. Social profiles are multi-dimensional and include contact points from a variety of traditional and “new media” sources—blogs, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, etc. People can also have multiple identities that map to either their professional or personal associations, interests and networks.
• Activity profile. A social profile includes a record of an individual’s relevant social communications and activities. This includes direct communications with your company, but also expands to public social communications that pertain to your brand, your market, your products, your company, or even your competitors. Brands want a view not only of a person’s influence within social communities but also their engagement within those communities. The social profile should provide that information.
• Communications analysis. The social profile should include a history of every communications between the brand and the individual, but it should also provide an analysis of the social conversations that the individual has had. How engaged is that individual? Have their conversations been positive, negative, neutral? How often have they mentioned or discussed the brand’s products? What communities are they engaged in? How often have they been exposed to the brand’s communications?
• Segmentation and customization. While a system’s core data and analysis is essential to developing a view of the individual’s personna, it’s the brand’s own definitions of important segmentation that makes or breaks the value of the social profile. Enabling multiple custom categories or tags within the social profile enables the brand to (even on the fly) define an essential way of defining an individual in relation to the brand for later use in communications, messaging and marketing.
• Influence analysis. The social profile should include ways for the brand to evaluate a person’s standing within the social community—how much that person can influence and reach others.
• Preferences. Interests and communications preferences need to be an integral part o the social profile. How they want to be contacted, how often, which channels and what they want to receive…these are essential and should be strictly adhered to.
3. How can brands use the Social Profile?
• Targeted marketing. At the end of the day, everyone wants to sell their products. Using all the intelligence developed in the social profile, the marketer now has the opportunity to fine tune their messages, offers, communications and engagement with a willing and interested audience. Higher response and action rates will ensue.
• “Free” data. Much of what we’re gathering into the social profile is freely available data. Marketers pay a high price for lists that include demographics and psychographics. Using the right tool, all that “free” data can create a powerful profile.
• Adjusting the tenor of a conversation. Using the social profile will help the brand determine the best way not only to reach an individual but to speak to them in a way that is appealing, desired and appropriate.

Are you developing social profiles on your social contacts? How are you using those profiles to drive your social marketing?

Image Credit: Hilde Vanstraelen

Even though the economic times are tough, you need to continue to reward and motivate your employees. People are working harder than ever, and there are lots of ways to acknowledge their contributions, to make the work environment more friendly and positive, and to motivate them to continue their efforts towards reaching your company’s goals. Here are a few ideas to help you reward your employees for a job well done!

1. Send a handwritten note. Take time to create a handwritten thank-you to an employee who has gone out of his/her way to attain a goal, to meet a deadline, to solve a problem, or to take care of a customer. Deliver that note to your employee in person and let them know how happy you are with their performance. Make a note of this also in their personnel file so their contribution is noted when performance reviews are being given.
2. Create a fun activity. Create regular fun activities that engage your employees. For example, have a “match the employee to their baby picture” contest and award a prize to the person who has the most correct matches. Let your employees generate ideas for these kinds of activities. As an added bonus, it encourages personal connections between your employees.
3. Treat your employees. As in, give them a treat. Have a monthly birthday party for every employee with a birthday in that month. Treat them to cake, ice cream and time with the CEO. Knowing that top management cares about them is a great way to motivate your team!
4. Hall of Fame. Create a space where you can post pictures and short stories of employees who have been recognized for outstanding service or effort. Create a nomination process and a regular recognition process. Have it be in a public area where not only employees—but your customers—can see the great accomplishments of the people in your company.
5. Reward effort. While success is important, ideas and innovation are just as important. Make sure you have a way to reward ideas and innovation as well concrete results. Create an “innovation award” as part of your recognition system. It will encourage your employees to think outside the box.
6. A little food goes a long way. As a special reward, bring in coffee and breakfast breads to recognize a milestone, a job well done, a large customer win, etc.
7. Create an outside recognition system. Your customers, partners, suppliers and visitors are a great source of reward and recognition. Give them an opportunity to fill out a recognition form for someone in your company who has gone out of their way to help them. Make these forms available in person, online and in other ways to ensure an easy process. Share the comments with the employee and the HR department.

At JitterJam, we relax every Friday afternoon with some snacks and beverages. It’s a great way to unwind after a week of hard work. We named the day Fun Stuff Friday!

How do you you recognize and reward your employees?

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

Last week’s Creativity Coffee focused on Social Marketing Business Objectives. One of those objectives was to identify and develop advocates. A large part of that group of social advocates are the influencers—those people whom others follow, engage and seek out for advice, information and even entertainment. A mention, endorsement or positive review from an influencer can go much further than an advertising campaign; this kind of endorsement is seen as more credible, spontaneous and genuine by the social public. Brands are trying to bring those influencers into the fold—to engage them with their brand and to provide them with a positive brand experience. But how do they identify which individuals are key influencers? We originally touched on core characteristics of influencers in an earlier discussion and blog post, but we wanted to dive deeper into the subject. That was the topic of this past week’s Creativity Coffee, and here are some ideas that came from that discussion.

1. How do influencers emerge in a group?
• Teamwork dynamics. Taking an analogy of teamwork exercises, leaders naturally emerge from a group based upon their characteristics that make them a fit for specific roles. The organizer. The leader, the idea person. The doer. Typically, people are drawn to the roles they play in other aspects of life in which they have skill and recognition.
• Personal characteristics. A role is most effectively filled by the person whose intrinsic characteristics—charisma, attention to detail, sensitivities, intellect, ability—are the best match with the requirements of that role.
• Influencers in the digital social community are like those in teams. Online communities are made of loose associations of people talking about common interests. How do influencers emerge on the Social Web? Similar to the team dynamic, natural leaders emerge. Charisma, expertise, organizational skills, problem-solving skills, diplomacy, engagement and involvement of others, and even humor help the natural leader drive the growth and health of a digital community.
• Presence is also key. Involvement, presence, frequency of participation, value of content and persistence within the community also drive people to emerge as the core leaders and influencers in the digital space.
2. How do you identify the influencers on the Social Web?
• Look who’s talking. Which individuals are the most vocal in a specific community? But that shouldn’t be the only measure. Just because someone talks a lot doesn’t mean that others see value in what they say.
• Engagement is key. Do others respond to an individual? Are they engaged in conversation? Do they comment on the person’s posts, links, content, questions, comments? Does the person’s style have an appeal to your target audience? Is that appeal appropriate for your brand? You’re looking for someone who resonates with your target market.
• Don’t discount charisma, personality and ethics. Trust and influence go hand in hand. Even though someone may be engaged and vocal, they can be so in a way that may be more controversial than productive. Make sure to evaluate how the individual’s personality has a positive or negative influence on others. Are they engaging or are they complaining? Do they “play nice” or are they trying to stir the pot? Jerks may attract people due to their controversial nature, but is this someone you want engaged with your brand?
• Your personal experiences can guide you. Think about the communities in which you are engaged personally. Which individuals are the key positive influencers—that emerge to organize the group, that you go to for information, whose opinion matters to others. Ask yourself why that person influences you. Now think of another leader or active member of that organization that is less influential; while engaged, that person’s opinion has less weight because of their personality, ethics or lack of positive impact. We all know how to identify those influencers to target and those to avoid. “Everything you need to know, you learned in 4th grade.”
3. How do you find these influencers?
• Search and Listen. Make sure you’re searching across Twitter, Facebook, blogs, email lists, and other social communities for people talking about your product, your brand, your market or items related to your target customer (events, topics, people, news).
• Evaluate Influence. Look at the depth and breadth of reach—friends, followers, blog subscribers, etc.—as a first indicator (JitterJam’s Jitterater does a great job at this). Dig deeper using some of the characteristics mentioned above to determine potential fit with your brand’s identity. Look further than the last few postings; see how long they’ve been in the social space, how often they engage others and how others respond.

So now that you’ve identified an influencer, how do you start a dialogue? We’ve posted some ideas on Starting a Dialogue with a Consumer that might help you. Have you identified the key influencers in your market? How have you done so, and how are you engaging those individuals? Let us know!

Image Credit: svilen001

In social media, personal connections inspire trust whether in an individual or in a brand. Connecting personally helps brands to develop relationships with consumers and promote advocacy. The challenge is identifying potential advocates. One effective solution is utilizing user-generated content, which allows willing advocates to step forward and help promote your brand. This can be much cheaper for your business, and it will be fun for your customers.

The most common method for gathering user-generated content is asking users to share brand testimonials or a specific brand experience through a video. Consumers are inclined to trust the opinion of customers more than the voice of the company, because consumers are unpaid and don’t have their own agenda. A consumer taking time out of their day to share their positive experience with others is an endorsement of the brand in itself.

A recent video campaign using this strategy was the Ten Second Challenge from Aflac, which asked fans to explain what the company does in only ten seconds through a creative video. While these videos are funny, they also communicate the brand’s message through the credible voice of a consumer. This is a main strength of brand advocacy, and user-generated content accomplishes this and more.

Another campaign leveraging user-generated videos is Tillamook Cheese, who gathered similar videos and used them as the basis of a TV advertising campaign. Since the video campaign, they have expanded their efforts and are now asking their fans for notes that  “Share the Loaf.” This new campaign builds upon existing relationships and fosters new connections through engagement.

User-generated content is beneficial to businesses because the value it adds to a company far exceeds its cost. This campaign strategy can be implemented on social networks like Facebook for almost no cost, while simultaneously identifying the best potential brand advocates. The connections formed with these users give your brand the opportunity to build loyal customer relationships through engagement, which is the first step towards developing brand advocacy.

If you have time, spend a few minutes of your Friday watching these videos or checking out Toyota’s campaign, and see how user-generated content campaigns can be successful and fun at the same time! If your company has used this strategy before what were the results, what worked and what didn’t? And how would you recommend other companies implement their own campaigns?

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

It’s no big news that more and more businesses are diving into social marketing—500 million Facebook users are just too hard to pass up! But aside from the obvious audience potential, businesses need to set clear objectives for their social marketing activities in order to develop measurable value for their effort. What are the core business objectives for social marketing? What should businesses be striving to accomplish?

1. Brand awareness.
• Basic objective. It’s a common and basic objective for a brand or business to want to increase brand awareness through social marketing.
• Measurement. Brand impressions are the core measurement, based upon the social following and tangible results from those brand impressions, including web traffic and SEO.
2. Grow the social community.
• After the brand or business has established their social presence, the next objective usually is to grow that follower or fan base. The same metrics apply—number of friends/followers, brand impressions, web traffic and SEO.
3. Identify and develop advocates.
• Inexpensive marketing, sales force. It’s less expensive to develop brand advocates than to run advertising campaigns. Additionally, brand advocates voices are seen as more “genuine” to consumers than the brands themselves.
• Product claims made by brands are met with resistance.“No one believes advertising; we live in a time of disbelief.”
• Consumer brand advocates provide an authentic voice. Authenticity is key. Brand advocates speak to their target segment(s) and enable authentic messages that resonate with their peers. You can’t create and run enough ads and messages to blanket all the potential target segments.
• What makes a good brand advocate? They need to have established expertise. Whether it’s your peer, your uncle or a blogger, people will look at their prior content to see if their opinions are valuable and reliable.
• How do you find and engage a brand advocate? Well, we won’t lie. JitterJam does this very well. But in general, you need to search through the Social Web to find these voices. You then need to evaluate their engagement with your brand, their influence and reach, their prior content, their engagement with others, etc. You want to engage people with genuine enthusiasm for the brand. Use social searches to find those conversations and begin your outreach.
• How does sentiment analysis fit in? Overall sentiment analysis can help you determine how your social marketing is being received. You can track the trends and see the long-term impact of your outreach and advocacy. You can then try to correlate that sentiment analysis with the impact to your business.
4. Provide new channel for customer feedback.
• You may or may not find the true customer voice. Many companies ask direct questions to elicit feedback, but they often don’t get much response. Curb your expectations.
• Larger brands have a better chance to get feedback. Consumers are usually more willing to respond to a larger brand. You need a larger audience to capture that small vocal percentage. However, that vocal public may not be wholly representative of your market. Social media is like talk radio. Those on the extremes are the ones most likely to “call in.”
5. Provide new channel for customer service.
• Be ready. Customer service over public social media channels can have an extremely positive impact on how consumers view your brand. But a single poor experience can also become a very public, viral spiral of negativity and a PR nightmare. Make sure you are prepared to provide excellent service and have policies (including a very clear escalation process) in place to ensure customer satisfaction.
• One size does not fit all. You are not going to be able to please all the people all the time. However, how you handle the situation and work towards resolution will help you even if you can’t completely satisfy the customer. Make sure all your staff is responsive and execute well. They are not only providing customer service, they are acting in a PR role as well.

What are your business objectives for social marketing? How are you measuring your success! Let us know!

In the era of social business on the web, reputations are determined by how companies act in the public eye. Whether positive or negative, sentiment can spread very quickly across social networks with the potential to become viral. To take advantage of this, marketers have begun to publicize their socially responsible activities through cause marketing campaigns. Cause marketing has helped companies build brand loyalty, increase engagement with consumers, improve brand reputation, and—most importantly—do good for the community.

The Pepsi Refresh Project is one of the largest and most popular cause marketing campaigns, and recently committed $1.3 million to the gulf coast alone! The campaign is structured so that users vote on grant ideas submitted either by other users or by well-known celebrity figures, allowing everyone to feel like they are doing a bit of good along the way. This creates huge engagement opportunities on Facebook and Twitter and motivates people to share the initiative with others as well.

Dawn Dish Soap has also turned heads with their Everyday Wildlife Champion initiative, which promises to donate a dollar to rescuing wildlife for every bottle of Dawn product purchased. To activate this donation you have to go to their website, where you will see plenty of cute animal pictures, and then enter the activation code from the bottle.  By enabling consumers to complete the donation, Dawn makes them the ones responsible for doing good.

The common denominator in both of these campaigns is finding important charitable causes that consumers feel passionate about and that genuinely reflect the company’s values. Both campaigns move the responsibility of involvement to consumers, empowering them to contribute, and making them feel good about their actions. Additionally, cause marketing motivates consumers to share with the brand and with other consumers creating an opportunity to develop engagement into long-term customer loyalty.

There are plenty of great opportunities to get involved with cause marketing right now, whether you are donating a dollar through Dawn or beginning your own cause marketing campaign. Just remember, with a little creativity you can do an awful lot of good! What other cause marketing initiatives have you seen and participated in? What about the campaigns made you want to participate?

Photo Credit: LittleMan

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

The last two Creativity Coffee discussions centered around Social Etiquette and Facebook Etiquette—the rules of engagement. If you are aware of the rules of engagement, what are some acceptable and effective practices for outreach to engage a new consumer with the hopes of starting a dialogue? Here are the ideas sparked during our last Creativity Coffee.

1. How do you open the dialogue?
• Thanks. Has a consumer made a positive comment about your brand? Thank them. Be genuine.
• Question. Has a consumer made a comment about looking for a product in your market? Have they stated a preference? Ask them a question to see if they will engage with you. Make sure it’s not a direct sales pitch like, “Have you tried our product?” or you could immediately alienate the consumer. However, if someone states that they are looking for a specific type of product that fits your product line, ask a question about what they need. Be on the lookout for a response—and your opening for creating a dialogue!
• Comment. Did someone post a comment, a link, a tidbit that fits your product or market? Comment back to the consumer with a compliment, a suggestion or a helpful piece of information. For instance, if someone posted a picture of their cute dog and you’re a dog food company, comment back with an opening like, “Love that picture of spot. You should enter it into our Dog of the Month contest—Spot is so cute! Here’s the link…” Or if someone is concerned about what they’re feeding their dog, you should comment about what proper nutritional elements are in a good dog food and what could be causing problems. Be helpful and provide value. Don’t try to sell. Remember, you’re trying to be social!
2. Make it personal.
• No robots. Social consumers are savvy. If they see a comment from you that’s repeated over and over (think “scripted”), they will quickly be able to see your lack of personality and shy away from engaging. Who wants to talk to a robot?
• Be specific. Use the contact’s name. Address specifics about their comment, question, posting, etc.
• Be genuine. You’re speaking for your company, but your personality shines through in your dialogue. Make sure that your comments pertain to your real interest in the consumer…not fake enthusiasm. If it’s fake, someone will notice. If your brand is a known public brand, they might even call you on it.
3. Use a contest to draw people in.
• Use some sort of contest to get people to engage with you.
• The pet pictures example mentioned above doesn’t have to be for a pet brand. Recently, a community bank used a community pet photo contest to engage more deeply with the local community. Better yet, this kind of contest is viral—people will share their entry with family and friends in order to get votes! Be careful—make sure you do not misuse registration information. Registering for a contest should not automatically cause an opt-in for marketing communications. Use the opportunity to ASK for an opt-in, but don’t make it the default. If you do, you’ll alienate potential customers and tarnish your brand.
• You can use both digital and traditional media to promote your contest.
4. Use content that truly engages people and reflects your company’s values.
• Community causes. Whether your “community” is local, national or international, you can connect with consumers who share your values. Many companies are supporting causes that reflect their core values, and these causes can be a vital way to connect with the community.
• Use social media to publicize. Reflect the messages used to create awareness in other media on social media as well. Use social media to report on progress, share stories and to get people engaged.
• Example: Dawn Saves Wildlife. A dollar from every purchase (when a code is entered onto their website) is donated by Dawn to saving wildlife. This spurs purchases and engagement and resonates with people who care about ecology and animal welfare.
• Example: Supporting local charities. A community bank donates money to a local non-profit and posts the pictures of the donation ceremony on Facebook. Tons of people “like” and “share” the story and picture with others. A press release may have been picked up by a local paper and, for most part, ignored. But this kind of community work is a great positive social PR story.
5. Take your time, try different mixes and be patient.
• Some markets are harder than others. For instance, how does a CPA engage with potential customers?
• Use the Five C’s of Following People.
• Try different mixes and types of content, from informational, educational, fun and conversational. Make sure that you interject some product information as well, but not too much (less than half of your content should be product-based).
• Blog. It’s one of the key ways to continue to add content to your website to increase search engine rankings and to be found organically.
• Stick with it. All this takes time and resources. Make sure you stick with it, or your brand will be seen as anti-social, dis-engaged, a dead stick.

What is working for you? What kinds of conversations have you started lately? Have they resulted in new customers? Join the conversation!

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

The last Creativity Coffee discussion centered around Social Etiquette. What rules do businesses and brands need to follow to ensure that they are not creating social SPAM? We had far too little time to fully cover the topic, so we continued the conversation by focusing on social etiquette for a single social channel—Facebook. Here are the highlights of the discussion.

1. A Facebook “fan” is like an annuity—a gift that keeps on giving.
• A Facebook fan provides an ongoing value stream.
• Your wall posts/updates are seen by all your fans, but also potentially by all your fans’ friends. One fan can fuel hundreds of brand impressions.
• The real “value” of a Facebook fan is an unknown. That is, until you begin to drive engagement with your fans.
2. Facebook outreach to non-fans is tricky. When is it okay? How do you do it without “freaking out” the consumer?
• As we discussed in our last session, Facebook’s closed networks and less-than-public personal updates make it a difficult platform to use for “discovery” of new brand fans. Search results are limited to those who choose to make all their status updates open to everyone.
• When you do come across a public (everyone) status update that is associated with your brand/market/product, what do you do?
• Use the context of the person’s update (and prior updates). Be respectful. If it’s a negative comment or a complaint, identify yourself and ask if you can be of assistance in resolving the situation. Remember that your posts/comments to a person’s wall is from YOU, the page admin, not BrandX, so identifying yourself is important.
• Offer value. If the status update is a positive comment, identify yourself (Facebook manager for BrandX), thank them enthusiastically for the comment, and invite them to “like” your page and opt-in for future offers. If the person tends to like offers (you can tell via their news stream), you might take the risk to provide a coupon or offer as well. This is really discretionary and should be used only when clearly appropriate.
3. There are coupon fans and non-fans. And they’re both on Facebook.
• Sometimes, it seems to be black or white, love or hate for “offers”. Listen before you engage. View the status updates from a person to see if they are amenable to receiving an offer before sending one to them. Make sure you have a plan, and a respectful one at that, for what triggers your brand to engage with a consumer on Facebook, BASED ON something they said from status update.
• Context is king. At times, people post on Facebook to be social and aren’t interested in potential “offers.” Other times, they are shopping, researching, chatting about brands and products, and it IS appropriate to engage them in your brand even further and even incent them to try your product. Use the info you know about a user, and offer them something targeted that will be meaningful to them. Send the appropriate message.
• While it’s fine to post incentive offers like coupon links, promotion codes and special “Facebook-only” deals on your fan page, make sure that these are NOT the only pieces of content you share on your Fan page. You want to draw people to engage, communicate and deepen the love of your brand. Don’t forget to be social, have discussions with fans, ask them questions, make them smile, provide them with a fun and lively place they want to visit often.
4. Let them opt-in.
• Facebook is a social network. While your fan page is a primary channel for your brand’s consumer engagement, it’s always good give your fans other ways to connect with you.
• Give your fans a way to opt-in to other communication channels (email, Twitter, mobile) and to other communication types (newsletter, coupons, events, etc.) JitterJam’s Make Me Happy™ permission marketing Facebook app works well here!
5. You don’t know what a fan is worth until you know.
• A fan or like you make today may not produce for months….stay the course, be patient, give to get.
• Example: Gary Vaynerchuk – the gift economy. If you don’t know someone, how to you get in their good graces..bring a gift. The same holds true for digital/Facebook etiquette. Come with a gift.
6. Make sure you’re ready for negative comments.
• Whether it’s about your product or about how you’re marketing via Facebook, make sure you’re ready to publicly handle negative comments in a positive way.
• Making decisions on what to say and how to handle potentially sensitive and explosive issues (e.g. the Capri Sun moldy drink debacle) shouldn’t be in the hands of an intern. Make sure you have a fast and effective process for escalation and resolution.
• Not everyone is going to love being contacted by your brand. Be respectful and always make sure you follow any requests to disengage swiftly. Don’t make a lost connection a bad connection.

How are you handling Facebook outreach and engagement? What have resulted in higher engagement by your fans? Please let us know!

Consumers love freebies and companies love new leads and contact growth. To satisfy both parties, companies can use contests to reward consumers for participation and simultaneously build their own community. Here are three steps to help you create your own successful contest:

1.  Conceptualize

• Before you begin planning your contest, identify specific goals for the campaign. These could be simply gaining more fans and followers to build your contact database, or building customer loyalty, brand advocacy, and community engagement. Be sure that the value you will gain from the contest matches the value of the prize to the consumer
• The success of a contest hinges on targeting the correct consumers, which will let you gain long-term customer value from participants. Identify an idea or concept that will appeal to your target market, and not just the largest number of people.
• Lastly, decide which format is the best for your contest. The format and rules should be based off of your concept and your goals for the campaign, and will affect how and when you choose the contest winner.

2.  Promote and Run

• Because contests have a set time line for entering and for announcing winners, they will dictate the timetable for your marketing activities. You should promote your contest a few weeks prior to the campaign launch and during the campaign at key time junctures (being sure NOT to spam).
• Your target market should determine the best promotion channels for your campaign. Social broadcasts on Facebook and Twitter will increase your reach, but if your audience receives company updates through newsletters or press releases these channels will be more effective.
• A key part of your strategy is the campaign’s call to action. How will you attract your target market and how will they enter? It is most important that the action of entering the contest benefits your company.

3.  Measure

• Measuring short-term success is as simple as recording brand mentions, conversation volume, contact growth, or sales figures depending on your campaign goals.
• Long-term success will be dependent on these numbers remaining elevated, and developing new contacts into customers. To gain more value from new contacts you can implement a customer loyalty program that rewards continued support and engagement, and would allow you to track which future sales resulted from the contest.

Ultimately you are the person that knows your target market best, and this should determine how you plan your campaign. If you follow these steps and appeal to your desired audience, your contest is sure to be fun and successful for everybody!

Have you used a contest or a sweepstakes as a marketing tool before? Tell us about it! What strategies did you choose to use and what successes were you able to achieve?