Attract eyeballs to your Facebook page
With 1 billion users already and growing, Facebook offers brands a huge potential fan base. Along with the opportunity comes the challenge of breaking through heaps of status updates and posts and making yourself heard in the crowd. Facebook promotions are a great way to make your fans feel that they are important to your brand. Here are six easy ways of increasing customer engagement with Facebook Promotions:
1 – Sweepstakes
These are contests that let fans submit free entries for a chance to win through a lucky draw. The reason why sweepstakes are popular is because they require minimum effort on the part of the player and can give great rewards ranging from cash to cars. Sweepstakes spread quickly because they give everyone an equal chance of winning.
For example, for IGN’s movie Parker, Cygnis Media launched a sweepstakes through an app. Fans could submit their names for a lucky draw and then watch an exclusive trailer of the movie from within the application. The app was a roaring success as half a million players entered the contest and watched the trailer online.
2 – Contests
Making your fans compete against each other in a fun way can be really exciting. Even though your fans may not know each other, you can encourage participation through leaderboards and points system. Contests on Facebook can be versatile because there are a lot of features that can help you launch a contest.
Cadbury’s Flake created a fashion contest through their “Flake ME Fashion Competition” application on Facebook. The app allowed players to dress their dummy selves in creative outfits and don them with fashion accessories. They could then share the ensemble with everyone and become part of a contest where every week the most voted outfit would win prizes.
3 – Special Offers
You can reward your Facebook fans for being marketers for your products. E-commerce applications for Facebook pages can easily help your fans get special discounts and offers and make purchases while they interact with you. Special offers are specially attractive for Facebook users because it means a regular stream of discount updates from your Facebook page. This makes your fans loyal customers of your brand.
For example, Coca-Cola’s Amatil Clubhouse publishes a feed of offers for its fans to choose from. Apart from suggesting regular offers, they also hold competitions and give away prizes to lucky winners. It is free to sign up and currently more than 60,000 fans avail the offers!
4 – Real-time engagement
Nothing impresses a fan more than immediate response. You can launch a Facebook promotion that allows users to see the results of their participation right there and then. An example for this can be a dynamic Facebook cover photo promotion. For each entry submitted to the contest, you can update your cover photo instantly showing the participants’ entries.
Emirates NBD wanted to create a buzz on social media for UAE’s 41st national day celebrations. Cygnis Media developed a dynamic Facebook cover photo that updated the cover of the fan page every time a user refreshed the page. What’s more, the cover photo showed the picture entries submitted by Emirates NBD fans showing the spirit of nationhood. Forty one entries were then shortlisted for a special exhibition.
5 – Connecting real and virtual worlds
Facebook is essentially a platform to bridge your real life social experience with online fun. The most successful Facebook promotions are those that can create a connection between your real and virtual worlds.
Burger King launched a viral promotional campaign asking its fans to choose between their Facebook friends and a Burger King Whooper. Users who “sacrificed” at least 10 friends received a coupon for a free Whopper at Burger King. Faced with the choice of food versus friends, more than 230,000 users were ditched for a burger within one week of the campaign.
6 – Virtual Games
Games allow fans to enter a fantasy world, become a hero and create an impact. If your brand wants to promote itself as a fun-loving company, games are the best way to reach out to your fans. But games can come in all shapes and sizes. Don’t limit yourself to apps and video games.
Fanta creatively used the Facebook timeline and sent its fans travelling through the years in search for Fanta’s characters. Clues about the missing character’s locations were posted as photos on the Timeline and sent people raking through the years to 1940 to find them. When a character’s post or photo received enough likes or comments, the character was restored to the cover photo.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, there are a number of ways in which you can attract your Facebook fans with promotions. Promotions can increase engagement and interactivity with your brand and offer your customers a chance to become a part of the brand experience. Games and competitions are a healthy way of initiating a race for loyalty while special discounts can keep your customers coming back to your page for more deals. Facebook is a trending platform for one billion people and if your target audience is spending time there, grab the opportunity now.
