3 REASONS WHY FACEBOOK IS NOT JUST ABOUT GIVEAWAY CONTESTS

Source: http://www.linkedin.com/andrine

12 September 2012
I have often met clients who just wanted to obtain “LIKES” on their facebook fan page and just wanted to do random contests and have a bespoke giveaway as their social media plan.

In fact, most brands do just that, investing to obtain ‘FANS’ by doing random contests in an effort to engage a new audience. I would say this is a very short-term plan and the uncertainty in the way social media sites have been performing is a reason for such a short-term plan.
But is a bespoke giveaway or campaign good enough to keep fans engaged with your brand?
Here are three reasons why such a strategy makes little sense from an ROI perspective and on a long-term basis.

1. GIVEAWAY CAMPAIGNS HAVE A SHELF LIFE
However big your giveaway is, it will always lose impetus. Ask yourself, how many giveaway campaigns do you recall? Getting users to ‘LIKE’ something or enter their email IDs for a sweepstake or a giveaway was until now considered to be a best practice. The fact is that these email IDs that we get or the ‘LIKES’ we generate are rarely used to make any business sense.

2. THEY COME JUST FOR THE ‘GIVEAWAY’
Having done campaigns of similar aspects for clients one thing I have seen is that there will be a lot of people lined up when there is a giveaway, which is of no surprise but these users are rarely the right TG for the brand. There has been instances where users just ‘LIKE’ the page to participate and subsequently UNLIKE the page after the contest.

3. YOU DON’T OWN THE DATA
Having even a million fans really doesn’t mean anything, as you neither have any data about them nor a way to contact with them. On Facebook, Edgerank prevents you from reaching around 84 percent on your newsfeed organically. In short, these entities are not entirely under your control nor do you own any content.

SO WHAT IS THE BEST STRATEGY?
Having said all that, what is the best strategy for your brand social media presence? Brands need to think beyond social media as just another platform and build their core strategy, as they would do for any other media. Facebook itself is pushing marketers to invest more in terms of resources and efforts, the recent changes such as timeline and brand pages are all pushing in that direction. To put it in simple terms there needs to be a revision on your social media KPIs and I would suggest you start with:
Building assets and not one time contests: rather than doing a random sweepstake or “RT” contests, build a campaign/property which people will come back for. The right people of course!
Invest in social content: You spend a lot of money in creating visual/print/TVC ads, likewise invest time and resources in building exclusive social content
Integrate social media to other mediums: While building campaigns integrate social media to the fullest.

Your turn… have I missed anything? Let me know in the comments!