Social Sweeps LogoI use the term Social Sweeps to describe a sweepstakes or contest promotion that integrates with social media platforms. This helps to provide participants flexibility in accessing and interacting with a promotion. By providing these various options for users to participate, you appeal to them more positively which helps to increase the participation rate. I’ve always been a big believer that by utilizing social media platforms you Share-iconsenable participants to share your promotion with their friends which allows them to get the word out for you faster and farther!

I came across a recent study that was conducted to learn more about how and why participants share the online promotions that they’ve entered on the various social platforms. The study was done by Easypromos in which they extracted data from more than 200 promotions that were running on their Premium Application from January-February, 2015, in which over 140,000 people took part.

We now get asked quite often about allowing participants to gain bonus entries for sharing which many promotions now include. For example, after a participant enters they are asked to share on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram and they gain additional entries for each share. However, if the promotion is being run on Facebook then you would be in violation of the Facebook policy if you encourage sharing to gain entries. Instead what most Facebook applications allow is for users to invite friends to enter the promotion and if that friend enters, the original user gets an extra entry.

The team at Easypromos created this infographic that displays the results of their study, so I thought I’d share it here. It does state that participants will share the promotion much more when they are offered an incentive, such as extra entries. Take a look.

Infografic-Share Online ContestsThe study did show that it was almost 50/50 between desktop vs. mobile and Facebook was the top social platform for sharing. However, on January 20th, Easypromos introduced instant messaging applications as another option for mobile users to share the promotion. In that short time WhatsApp became the second most-chosen platform for sharing promotions from a mobile device: 17.19% of shares were done through this app. So this is definitely a trend to watch.  Thanks to Easypromos for compiling and sharing the data.

CWF-Tulips-300x225They say that Spring is here, but it appears to be more prevalent in some parts of the country than others. Just watching the news I see people outside in t-shirts and shorts. Haven’t gotten there yet in Western New York. Maybe this weekend!

For those of you that live or are traveling through the state of Virginia you will undoubtedly begin to see the iconic LOVE letters. The State of Virginia’s traveling LOVEwork sculpture ties into their tourism slogan, “Virginia is for Lovers”.  We’ve been working with the marketing team at Colonial Williamsburg through our sister company, Alliance Sweepstakes, for about five years now and they are extremely excited to host the LOVE letters for the first time.

CWF-MS-LOVEThrough an agreement with the Virginia Tourism Corporation and working with the Garden Clubs of Virginia, they have timed the arrival of the letters during Historic Garden Week. The letters will reside on Duke of Gloucester Street in Merchants Square, April 17-23. In celebration of the sculpture’s arrival, Colonial Williamsburg Merchants Square will be running the “Share the LOVE” photo sweepstakes during that week. Here’s how it works:

  • People are invited to take a picture of the LOVE letters
  • Then they must visit either the Colonial Williamsburg Merchants Square website or Facebook Page and follow the links to the Sweepstakes entry form
  • Once there they fill out the form, upload a photo, and once it’s submitted and approved, the photo will be shared in the promotion’s photo gallery.
  • For those that would like to use Instagram, the can first post their photo there using the #LOVEMSQSweeps hashtag. Once on the entry form, they will have the option to upload their photo from Instagram.

CWF-Share-the-LoveEach photo submitted will count as an entry into the Sweepstakes for a chance to win one of three $800 prize packages, including a $500 Merchants Square shopping spree and two statewide passes to the 2016 Garden Club of Virginia Historic Garden Week. Many of the Merchants are planning special events while the letters are in town along with the Williamsburg Farmer’s Market on Saturdays.

As with the Kiss Nail Products Dream Vacation Sweepstakes that I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago, we are also hosting and managing the entry form for this Share the Love Sweepstakes. So again we are using my favorite app for this, Shortstack. The app allows us to install the promotion to a tab on the Colonial Williamsburg Merchants Square Facebook Page as well as host it online so the Sponsor can link to it from their website and emails.

Shortstack just announced their new and improved analytic reports. Now you can easily know in real time where your traffic is coming from, whether it’s from search engines, websites, social media platforms or email. Also how people access your promotion, via Facebook vs. the web, or via a page embedded on your website. Or what device they used, a mobile phone, tablet or desktop, and what type of platform they came from.

So if you’re in the Williamsburg, VA, area starting next week be sure to check out the letters and take a photo. This is the first time that Colonial Williamsburg is including Instagram as an option, so we’re really interested to see how many participants use this platform and share their photos there. The letters, together with it being Virginia’s Historic Garden Week , should make for some great photos!  Can’t wait to see them. Welcome Spring!

F8-Live-300x300Facebook hosted their annual conference for developers last week known as F8. This is where Facebook previews their newest and latest products and tools for developers. I always thought it would be really interesting to attend even though I’m not a developer. But this 2-day event takes place on the west coast, this year in San Fransisco, so it’s hard for me to justify the trip. This year I received an invitation to register to attend the conference via their live streaming site, so  I did. The site not only let you view the sessions in real time, but also view the videos of the major sessions anytime .

F8-Gify-152x300To kick off the conference Facebook first unveiled big plans for Messenger, the separate app that they spun off from the basic Facebook platform that allows you to message anyone on the platform. Facebook is now opening Messenger’s API to third-party developers, which means this extra app that you had to download on your phone is going to become a social network in itself. Facebook is starting off with 40 apps such as those that allow people to send GIFs from Giphy, order a cab, or even transfer payments to friends. Launch partners include ESPN, JibJab, The Weather Channel, Selfied, Stickered, Sound Clips and Meme Generator.

You will have to downloaded separately all these apps that work with Messenger which means I probably should have upgraded my iPhone last time to a larger storage capacity. So instead of Messenger just being another chat platform that you’re reluctant to use, instead it may soon be an extremely useful tool that you’ll use without thinking twice. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told F8 attendees “By opening up Messenger as a platform, we’re going to help people express themselves in new ways”.

f8-Business-269x300Also previewed at the F8 conference was Business for Messenger that I find quite interesting. This tool “enables people to have rich and personal conversations with businesses.” The Businesses on Messenger program facilitates direct conversations between brands, businesses and consumers, and will provide a direct channel for updates and notifications. Initially Facebook is positioning this as a great tool for ecommerce where after a customer makes a purchase on the site they could opt to receive Messenger updates, including order confirmations, shipping status, order tracking or simply to ask questions. Partners include Everlane and Zulily and Zendesk will support the service’s live chat feature.

This opens up a whole new way for businesses to communicate with customers. Right now people can try to call a company and go through rounds of prompts to get to speak with someone live, or message a company on their Facebook page, or send them a tweet and then hope you’ll hear back from someone. Zuckerberg called the current state of customer service abysmal. “It just doesn’t feel like the future,” he said. In its place, “we’re making Messenger a place where [people] can connect with businesses.”

So if Business for Messenger does take off, it could have a huge affect on promotional marketing. Right now most businesses rely on their email database to communicate with customers. Some have been expanding their databases to include opt-in text message lists. However, here is a way to grow a new database where you can reach out to customers on their phone without having to even know their phone number. You can announce new promotions to people, such as sweepstakes and contests, and you can even offer support for these promotions as a way to answer any questions and include photos if needed. It could be a much easier way to notify winners without having to worry that your email might end up in a spam folder or your phone message was ignored and deleted.

I am curious to see what brands start to integrate this tool for promotional marketing in the coming year. I’m going to start to ask them about it. Any thoughts or plans you may have please share. Who knows, Mr. Zuckerberg may be right….the future just might be here.