Promotions 2.0Blurring the line between interactive advertising, promotions and social network marketing.

December 21st, 2009

3 Steps to Creating Social Media Value!

Social media has become mainstream media with over 300 million users on Facebook alone and, according to Forrester Research, most of those people interact socially at least once a month. This year Marketers will spend almost $1 billion on display ads in social networks and another $750 million on social media marketing.

Thousands of brands have entered the Social Media space this year, but many marketers still struggle to create social media value. Creating value for your consumers can be broken down into these three steps.

Step 1: Be Active
Companies must establish an active presence in social media that creates value before consumers will be willing to share with others. Dunkin’ Donuts illustrates how an engaging Facebook fan page can create value for customers and connect them to the brand. The company’s page has a variety of content including contests and quizzes. It also promotes other company content on other social media sites (Twitter, YouTube), and serves as a distribution point for promotions and news about local store openings.

Step 2: Connect
To connect with consumers, brands must establish strong relationships with brand followers. This means finding ways to connect with consumers beyond simply trying to sell them something. In other words, they need to find their advocates, connect with those people who are fans of the brand and will speak favorably of it online. These connections enable companies to communicate value propositions and encourage sharing. For example, Life is Good maintains a Facebook page. The company promotes local events and virtual rewards sent among Facebook members — the clothing is not even mentioned explicitly. Sales and promotion of the company’s clothing line is left to the website and catalogue.

Step 3: Give
Online interactions with brand followers and fans need to involve two things: an opportunity to contribute and an incentive. Promotions and contests are an excellent way to engage brand followers and fans. We recently helped Godiva create a  promotion for the holidays that let’s consumers send their friends on Facebook virtual gifts for a chance to win a year of Godiva chocolate. If the receiver wins, the sender also wins.

By making themselves available and engaging fans and followers online, companies can augment and improve marketing efforts significantly. Many marketers are unsure about how to enter social media marketing and fear that social media campaigns aren’t measurable. By following these steps and taking a data-driven and measured approach to social media marketing, marketers can identify, recruit and engage socially active customers and create ongoing value.