The most common error we see with any potential client’s social media is their complexity.
“Complexity doesn’t really work in social media. People are trying to create this social engagement and turn it into this multi-tiered, multilevel challenge to get people to do X,Y,Z,” says [GetGlue CEO Alex] Iskold. “The simplest things on GetGlue and Twitter and Facebook are spreading some kind of viral content through the existing social circuit. The best videos on YouTube go viral because people like them.”
Simplicity is an important part of the equation. So is quality content and quality product.
“All of these successful things have one thing in common: they have interesting content that then travels through the social Web,” Iskold says.
Promotions need to be super easy
We hate when we see a promotional call to action, contest, or content to share go no where. Simplicity needs to be the foundation of any marketing on your social media platform. Here are some tips and promotion examples:
- YOU (the business) do all the work: You have a Customer of the Day. Don’t just post a text with their name. YOU surprise them in line. YOU take their photo with their free item. YOU post it. YOU tag them. YOU write the post with the name of the contest, your website link and how everyone else could win in the future. All HE/SHE has to do is share it all day long with their friends in their network. Watch how many more people come in your shop, hoping to win, but 99% of everyone else has to actually buy something.
- Not everything has to be free: many business owners feel that promotions through social media must be a free item. Our alternative idea to that is the opposite – make a promotion that involves someone who purchased something to then participate by posting a photo and/or telling about their experience, happiness or why someone else needs to buy it! Every person who does that, pick a slow time and offer them to redeem a 2 for 1 of that same product. But don’t make the conditions to redeem too difficult – name a day, time and what the bring/show – and that’s it.
- Utilize all creative spaces: especially for Facebook, don’t just make one post for the promotion and forget about it. After 36 hours, that post can be completely irrelevant to your followers’ News Feeds if it isn’t shared enough. Use your Cover Photo on your page as an Advertisement space for the promotion. Get your graphic designer (call us!) to rearrange your creative for the promotion into 851 pixels by 315 pixels for your Cover Photo. If you think I just jumped into speaking Latin in that last sentence, you really should e-mail me and I’ll help you.
- Send the same promotion through your e-mail marketing: we love e-mail because it’s 100% deliverable (with a clean, updated list), and it’s shelf life is endless until the recipient does something with the e-mail; hopefully opens it! You need the Subject Line to be the call to action of the promotion to get as high of an open rate as possible. Inside the e-mail needs to be the same promotion creative, details, and ONE LINK to your social media page for the user to participate.
- Make it fun and some sales tips! Everyone has seen the same ole BOGO (buy one get one free) and after you read this blog post you might need to take a few days or a week to scheme up a really good one. Take that week to study your store or business, customer interactions, and analyze your sales to see which item or service sells the best, use that as your promotion, and tie it into how you could leverage your best selling products into helping sell other products that may or may not sell well. Don’t cannibalize your profit margins by giving away a lot of your best selling or most profitable items. As CNBC’s Marcus Lemonis would say “if you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business”
Read the full article here with Iskold
Matt Checchio is a Partner of Magnus Marketing in DuBois, PA. Magnus Marketing is the fresh and innovative consulting group providing marketing, promotion, creative, website, social media, publicity and IT services. Please feel free to visit www.ineedmagnus.com or contact Matt at matt@ineedmagnus.com
