Are You Seducing Your Facebook Fans?

** Edited to reflect changes for Wildfire App. While the content in this post is true, and contents and sweepstakes should be a part of your social strategy, please read to the end and see the bottom for updates and recommendations.

Are you a Facebook Page Admin? If you’ve been a Facebook community manager for very long, you’ve seen ads along the sides of your screen and you’ve stumbled across pages and groups geared toward incentives and giveaway-type promotions. You may have even pondered fan engagement and how to increase the number of “likes” to your Facebook Page. Have you clicked on those ads? Have you participated in a sweepstakes or contest on Facebook? If so, you probably have a bit more insight on a product or service, and have maybe even won something for your effort. But have you actually offered a sweepstakes or contest on your Facebook Page? …Are you seducing your Facebook Fans? In October 2010, I attended Social Media Examiner’s Facebook Success Summit. Terrific experience! The sessions were led by well-seasoned, knowledgeable professionals, and we learned all about maximizing Facebook for marketing. Part of our time was spent on advertising and promotions. Very groovy stuff!! We explored a great handful of good options for facilitating exciting fan activities on the “big blue.” So, I had been itching for the opportunity to coordinate a sweepstakes on Facebook. At an estimated 600 million active Facebook users at the time, what smart marketer wouldn’t jump in that ocean? Wildfire Finally, an opportunity – to promote a sweepstakes for Valentine’s Day! There are other options available, but we chose Wildfire because of the options available at very reasonable pricing for small businesses. A bit of background: The client is Romantic Endeavors – Specializing in celebrating milestone occasions for couples that still like each other. We chose a sweepstakes over a contest. This young company, with a relatively small fan base in Ohio, was on a very limited budget. Supporting the sweepstakes with Facebook ads would not be an option. Hype would come from email marketing, status updates, Twitter, and personal invitation. The duration of the promotion on Facebook would be just under a month to end on Valentine’s Day. The goal was to reach 2500 fans and spread the fan base across the United States to encourage their new “Undercover Cupid” program. Grand Prize – A $100.00 Victoria’s Secret Gift Card.

WOW All the hype for Wildfire was right on — it’s amazing…like wildfire!! 🙂 In less than a day we saw fan numbers jump by more than 100 with very little effort. Since, Facebook Page likes have climbed every day. At present, we are about to get into more targeted email marketing and all the fun posts and tweets, so the outlook is optimal. Why was it the choice application? First, many well-known Facebook marketers had spoken highly of it. Second, pricing was very reasonable — less than $40.00 for about a month of promotion time! Third, the features allowed for easy interaction with the client’s social networks:

Facebook – A custom tab specifically for the sweepstakes that could be set as the default landing page. Also, social share options for new fans to post on their Facebook wall.
Twitter – Linking to special sweepstakes page with opportunities to tweet about the sweepstakes and earn extra entries.
Microsite – For newsletter subscribers.
Website Widget – Enabling an opportunity for visitors to your website to interact and enter (activated below).

Romance and Seduction I’m not suggesting you should actually seduce your Facebook Fans. That would be inappropriate and bordering on violation of Facebook terms of service. But I am suggesting that now more than ever, we need to earn our Facebook fans. A Facebook Page Admin’s job is to make the content and posts delicious enough for our fans to react. We need to make liking a page exciting and fun. To curl our virtual index finger and invite our fans’ attention… …Seductive in a good way. Disclosure: This post regarding Wildfire was made with no affiliation. However, I was a part-time Cupid at Romantic Endeavors. Have you participated in a Facebook contest or sweepstakes? Have you coordinated a similar promotion? What insight do you have for others? *** As of this update on July 27, 2014 Wildfire App had already been acquired by Google, run for a time there, and is no longer available. My recommendation for Facebook Marketing promotions is TabSite App – They offer an easy-to-use plush presentation, and are one of the first partners with Canva, an image editing platform. This post should help you navigate the New Facebook Page Layout 2014.