Given the difficulty in capturing the attention of today’s consumer, running a competition on social media can be a daunting project. Those that do see a flurry of excited participants often fail to utilise this buzz for any long-term benefit, and before long the prospective customer has become distracted by the next mildly interesting piece of content on their timeline. Pessimistic right? Assuming you’re still with me, here are five things that should be considered when running your next social competition.

 Figure 1: Source – Brand Manage Camp

1) Mobile optimisation

This one goes without saying considering nearly all time spent on social media is done on mobile devices, however it is not enough to have a landing page that simply works on a consumers mobile phone. Research from Google (2016) has found that 53% of individuals will leave a mobile web page if it does not load in as little as 3 seconds. Failure to have a fast competition landing page will not only result in a lack of engagement with your competition, rather it will also reduce the amount of ad revenue that can be gained. For want of technical jargon, Impact have outlined five ways to reduce website load time.

2) Embrace user-generated content

User-generated content is a great way to get people engaged with your competition, with 90% of consumers claiming that such content is more influential in their buying decisions than promotional emails and search engine results (TurnTo 2017).  Consumers now demand  ‘authentic’ brand experiences, using fellow customers as one of many information points when interacting with a brand. Additionally, customers provided with an opportunity to make their own content will be driven by their motivation to achieve a sense of self-affirmation, when completing a task that they find interesting (Kende et al 2016).

The complexity of the application entry should depend on the overall aim of the competition, and should not be challenging to the point that customers become disinterested. High involvement activities that take a lot of commitment and skill are great for generating high levels of loyalty among a smaller population of people who are totally on-board with your brand. Less complex ideas such as Doritos eliminate a flavour campaign, are less likely to gain highly loyal customers but more likely to achieve a wider participation rate.  One risk in giving users free reign over the content they produce for your competition, especially with campaigns that require little user involvement, is that individuals will often look to hijack the campaign, with the results often going viral.

You all remembered Boaty McBoatface right? To avoid such issues, we suggest investing in both human and app-based content moderators, or aborting the idea of posting live automated consumer-generated content on a mass scale altogether.

3) Find out more about your customer than just their email address

Countless articles express the need for competitions to generate email leads, yet there is only so far a personalised email will get you. Only 25% of marketing emails on average end up being opened by the customer (Chaffey 2018). Meaningful data can be collected in the entry criteria for the competition, looking back at the example of Doritos who used the competition to generate data about the preference of their customers. Data can also be collected in an interactive way, such as asking users to complete a short quiz related to products they might be interested in, incentivising their efforts with a money off voucher as well as a competition entry. Ask yourself if the data you are asking for is really relevant, and to steadily build a picture of your customer over time, rather than trying to know everything about them in one go.

Use social listening tools to see what people are saying about your competition, and if you wanted to be really tech savvy, try using tracking parameters in the form of UTM codes. These customisable pieces of URL text work in conjunction with Google Analytics to track which channels and sources are driving visitors to your competition landing page. These codes could also be used to see how many new visitors to your competition landing page then decide to browse your website homepage. For more information on this, check out this other blog post here.

4) Choose an appropriate time frame

The approporiate time frame for running a social media competition will vary depending on the goal and nature of the competition. Those that require skill to enter should allow enough time for creative entries to be submitted, whereas those designed to generate a short lived buzz around your brand could last as little as a week. I advise that regardless of the nature and aim of the competition, that social media competitions do not exceed 8 weeks from start to finish, as the majority of those who enter social media competitions are aged 16-35 and typically impulse driven (Fang and Mowen 2009).

5) Incentivise social sharing

Incentivising participants to share your competition across various social platforms will enable you to spread the reach of your social media competition. For competitions centred around user-generated content, one way to incentivise this would be to feature competition entries on the homepage of their website should the participant share it on multiple platforms. Giving participants the chance to have their work appreciated by others would also give them a sense of pride in the content they create for your brand, giving your competition the positive publicity it needs to resonate with consumers.

Chaffey, D. (2018). Email marketing engagement and response statistics 2018. [online] Smart Insights. Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/statistics-sources-for-email-marketing/#q2 [Accessed 27 Mar. 2018].

Fang, X. and Mowen, J. (2009). Examining the trait and functional motive antecedents of four gambling activities: slot machines, skilled card games, sports betting, and promotional games. Journal of Consumer Marketing, [online] 26(2), pp.121-131. Available at: https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1080/10696679.2015.980172?needAccess=true [Accessed 29 Mar. 2018].

Google. (2016). Mobile speed impacts publisher revenue. [online] Available at: https://www.doubleclickbygoogle.com/articles/mobile-speed-matters/ [Accessed 27 Mar. 2018].

Kende, A., van Zomeren, M., Ujhelyi, A. and Lantos, N. (2016). The social affirmation use of social media as a motivator of collective action. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, [online] 46(8), pp.453-461. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jasp.12375 [Accessed 1 Apr. 2018].

TurnTo (2017). Hearing the Voice of the Consumer. UGC and the Commerce Experience. [online] TurnTo, p.10. Available at: http://www2.turntonetworks.com/2017consumerstudy [Accessed 1 Apr. 2018].

Stranger danger? Considerations for sporadic brand collaborations

Collaborating with a brand that has nothing to do with fashion tends not to be at the top of most clothing companies to-do lists. Most would rather opt for the playing it safe option, garnering little attention from consumers and media outlets alike with yet another predictable fashion brand alliance. Take H&M’s collaboration last year with London-based brand Erdem for example, receiving 3o million less impressions than their 2016 collaboration, and over 200 million less impressions than in 2014 (Shannon 2017). The reality is, consumers are bored of the predictable nature of what once was a novel trend.

“That element of newness and surprise that collaborations can offer is a critical weapon in the war to stay present in the news feeds of consumers”

As with anything in business, the want of a greater gain carries a greater risk. Dennis and Merrilees (2009) identify four main risks of brand collaborations to be a loss of control, confused positioning, fewer leverage points and image dilution of either brand. Despite this, the risks can be effectively managed, provided there is commonality between the cultures, management styles, mutuality and equality between both firms. Not only this, but by collaborating with an unrelated brand, it allows for each company to be creative and transfer their existing strengths to a new industry.

Supporting the view that brands belonging to different product-categories can, and have in the past collaborated successfully. Take for example the collaboration between care manufacturer Renault and cosmetics firm L’oreal, who designed a concept car that was able to provide a hydrating air conditioning system reminisce of an in-car spa (see figure 1). There are said to be a number of bases of fit that can enhance the success of a collaboration (Lanseng and Olsen 2012). Brands may be similar in symbolic factors that allow for the satisfaction of expressive needs among customers, such as self expression and group identification.

Figure 1: Renault and L’oreal’s collaboration was a success among female customers in France

Collaborations of this nature involve a greater amount of cognitive effort on the part of the customer to evaluate the proposition of this new brand alliance when there is no functional fit, deterring some customers from wanting to engage with the campaign. Customers may create a new schema for the brand alliance, forming new associations between the brands using existing knowledge of the nature of each brand. To overcome this, collaborating brands should ensure they understand existing schema and association networks that customers hold towards each brand, basing their campaign efforts on similarities held by the views of each set of customers.

Running social media competitions with your new brand alliance

When starting a seemingly harmless competition for your latest brand collaboration campaign on social media, there are numerous considerations that need to be accounted for. From a legal perspective, a UK based competition that costs money to enter without requiring any skill to be entered into a prize draw is a lottery, and would require a lottery operating license to avoid any illegality. One way around this is to incorporate a degree of skill into your competition, in turn deterring the majority of the general population from entering. An example of this would be to ask customers to solve a puzzle to be entered into a competition. On the other hand, asking a simple question such as naming the capital of France would not merit an element of skill being used to enter.

Figure 2: how not to ask questions in a paid entry competition

Brands must also be aware of the differences in the terms and conditions each social media site possesses with regard to running competitions. Twitter, for example, discourages posting the same competition related tweet repeatedly, whereas Facebook prohibits participants being able to tag themselves in promotional photos which they do not feature in. To see more information on the policies set by different social media sites click here.

Lastly, brands need to ensure competitions comply with the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code) This involves providing terms and conditions of the competition, providing details of when winners will be announced, the exact nature of the prizes and any restrictions put in place (i.e. geographical restrictions) among other aspects of the competition.

What can your new brand alliance do to maximise the chances of the competition being successful?

Deciding how to run your competition depends on the overall objective of the competition, with there being three purposes to competitions, as seen below:

Figure 3: the three purposes to running competitions (Ogden et al 2017)

With a brand collaboration strategy, it is likely that one of the main objectives would be to reach out to new customers and influence their beliefs about both brands. These low-valuation customers are most likely to engage with a competition that offers a prize structure of multiple large and smaller prizes, due to the  risk averse nature of such individuals (Kalra and Shi 2010). Such customers will also not hold the same strong  association networks of the brands as existing customers, therefore brands can use the competition as a tool of beginning to positively influence the customer. A downside this presents is the costly nature of providing multiple small and large prizes. This can be mitigated by offering non-cash prizes instead of cash prizes, which also increases the chances that people taking part in the competition will also be interested in the collaboration campaign itself, rather than just being ‘in it to win it’.

References

Dennis, C. and Merrilees, B. (2009). European journal of marketing. Bradford: Emerald Group, p.796.

Kalra, A. and Shi, M. (2010). Consumer Value-Maximizing Sweepstakes and Contests. Journal of Marketing Research, [online] 47(2), pp.287-300. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25674427.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A1783c271fce2137d7d2e94f746d5fd8d [Accessed 16 Feb. 2018].

Lanseng, E. and Erling Olsen, L. (2012). Brand alliances: the role of brand concept consistency. European Journal of Marketing, [online] 46(9), pp.1108-1112. Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/03090561211247874 [Accessed 19 Feb. 2018].

Ogden, S., Minahan, S. and Bednall, D. (2017). Promotional Competitions: A Taxonomy of Campaign Framing Choices Integrating Economic, Informational, and Affective Objectives. Journal of Promotion Management, [online] 23(4), pp.449-455. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10496491.2017.1297971?needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Brighton [Accessed 17 Feb. 2018].

With the online clothing pure-play industry forecasted to slow in growth by over 60% over the next five years (GlobalData 2016), we take a look at 4 ways in which building online partnerships can be used to reach out to both new and existing customers.

1: Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing has the power to be a great tool for firms, as it involves no upfront payment until a sale is made. This does not however, make it a sure fire solution for a firm to reach new customers, with Edwards (2007) highlighting the way in which poor affiliate marketing management can lead to rising consumer distrust of a brand. When advertisements through affiliates are placed on product-relevant pages or sites, they are far more likely to generate positive attitudes towards the brand, as well as greater purchase intentions among consumers (shamdasani et al 2001). Online clothing retailers ASOS and Boohoo offer the chance for anyone with a website or blog to become an affiliate, however in doing this both retailers run the risk of inconsistent branding and potentially bombarding consumers with intrusive advertising. Seth Godin (2009) sums up this need for management of brand affiliates in his quote below:

“You don’t find customers for your products. You find products for your customers.”

It is worth mentoning that affiliate marketing does not have to be limited to the efforts of individuals-  take a look at the new website Boom25.com, whereby brands pay commission to feature on the site that gives every 25th user their order for free, regardless of the brand. For more information visit www.boom25.com.

2: Brand Sponsorship

We are no strangers to the way in which brand sponsorship naturally generates brand awareness (Cornwell et al 2001), with it also being seen to drive sales, heighten awareness of the brand and increase positive publicity. Many brands however, are not always aware of the importance of sponsor distinctiveness. This involves brands “conveying difference in the context of similarity”, ensuring that consumers are not confusing your brands sponsorship efforts with those of another rival brand (Weeks et al 2017). Furthermore, if brands are able to form sponsorship deals with partners that align themselves with the values and objectives of their brand, then this will effectively resonate with consumers.  A unique example of this can be seen in Ferrero’s sponsorship of London Fashion Weekend on their Kinder bueno chocolate bars, with Ferrero targeting a mature female audience by associating both fashion and chocolate as positive feelings surrounding a light indulgence. More information on effective sponsorship partnerships can be found Here.

Figure 1.1: Ferrero sponsoring London Fashion Week with the Kinder bueno chocolate bar

Very.co.uk made history with their sponsorship of the Big Brother TV show, after integrating their products into a shoppable virtual tour of the house in which the TV show is set (see Figure 1.2).  Very.co.uk regularly communicated their association with the show and highlighted their click to buy microsite, relating back to the need for distinctive elements being incorporated into sponsorship campaigns. The ease in which viewers could browse and purchase products is another factor which would have enabled them to reach consumers who may not have previously known about the brand.

Figure 1.2: Very.co.uk’s virtual platform on the Channel 4 website

3: Link Building

Google (2017) recently drew our attention to an increase in spam links written in the name of one website, but published on another, reminding users of the guidelines in place to reduce link building as being the primary objective of websites. There are, however, a number of ways to effectively build external links that don’t violate Google’s guidelines. One of these is the use of video marketing, whereby firms can educate customers and customers-to-be about various aspects of their brand. An example of this can be seen in Boohoo’s spring campaign last year, as shown here.

Additionally, online clothing retailers need to effectively manage their link building strategy, with ASOS highlighting their team of fashion influencers on their website (see figure 1.3). These influencers have a global reach, using social media accounts to promote their style as a means of naturally building links across other platforms.

Figure 1.3: ASOS team of influencers featured on their website

4: Collaboration

Amidst an era of fast fashion, the industry is no stranger to collaboration through co-branding between popular clothing brands. Much of the time these partnerships come between fast fashion retailers and high end fashion retailers, such as H&M’s various collaborations with the likes of Marni and Versace to name a few.

Figure 1.4: Uniqlo’s former collaboration with Jill Sander

When used effectively, such collaborations give your brand the power to access individuals who may not have paid your brand much attention in the past, allowing you to expand your customer reach. Anselmsson et al (2014) found the uniqueness of a product offering also contributes to users’ willingness to pay a price premium for a particular product, with limited edition collections creating a sense of urgency to buy among consumers.

Fashion retailers are warned, however, to not use collaboration with other brands as a ‘quick-fix’ strategy. The buzz around an exciting new hybrid brand range is often seen as being short lived, while fueling future customer expectations of the brand and its performance.  Brands must also ensure they are on the same page with one and other, as well as being prepared on what to do should the relationship turn sour. An interesting read on this can be difficulties surrounding co-branding can be found here.

References

Cornwell, T., Roy, D. and Steinard, E. (2001). Exploring Managers’ Perceptions of the Impact of Sponsorship on Brand Equity. Journal of Advertising, 30(2), pp.41-51.

Edwards, K. (2007). Affiliate marketing finally goes mainstream. Marketing Week, 30(35), pp. 27.

GlobalData. (2016) The UK Clothing Market 2017-2022. [PDF] GobalData, pp.69-72. Available at: https://consumer.globaldata.com/Analysis/details/the-uk-clothing-market-2017-2022 [Accessed 20 Aug. 2017].

Godin, S. (2009). Seth’s Blog: First, organize 1,000. [online] Sethgodin.typepad.com. Available at: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000.html [Accessed 3 Jan. 2018].

Google. (2017). Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. A reminder about links in large-scale article campaigns. [online] Available at: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2017/05/a-reminder-about-links-in-large-scale.html [Accessed 4 Jan. 2018].

Shamdasani, P., Stanaland, A., and Tan, J. (2001). Location, location, location: insights for
advertising placement on the web. Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 41 No. 4, pp. 7-21.

Weeks, C., O’Connor, P. and Martin, B. (2017). When ambush marketing is beneficial to sponsorship awareness: creating sponsor distinctiveness using exclusivity and brand juxtaposition. Journal of Marketing Management, [online] 33(15-16), pp.1258-1264. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0267257X.2017.1372506?scroll=top&needAccess=true&instName=University+of+Brighton&instName=University+of+Brighton [Accessed 3 Jan. 2018].

Social media provides firms with a vast platform to reach out and engage with countless customers and customers to be, influencing sales, reputation and loyalty if utilised correctly. A recent blog post featured on Entrepreneur.com discusses five significant impacts a successful social media campaign can have on a business, which can be found here.

Additionally, numerous pieces of academic research also highlight the benefits of effectively utilising social media as a digital marketing tool. The reasoning behind this is simple: customer-brand relationships influence the way a customer thinks and behaves (Aggarwal 2004).

Every interaction that takes place between a firm and an individual, even those that are not reciprocated, shapes the way that consumers view that brand, in turn affecting a brand’s equity (Keller 2001). Auditing a social media presence involves assessing where you stand on your social media channels, figuring out the purpose of each channel and whether it is performing as expected. However, before you audit your social media presence, make sure you are already implementing strategies that have been shown to be successful. For example, did you know that customers familiar with a brand place more trust in the brand when informal language styles are used to communicate on social media? (Gretry et al 2017).

My brand is already active on social media, so why do I need to audit my social media presence?

Just because you are present on social media, does not necessarily mean you have a successful social media presence. An interesting post on this can be found here.

“Presence is how you are, within where you are”

It is all too common for firms to devise social media strategies, only to find that their strategy is yesterday’s news and a new trend has taken over. Think Vine for example, who within four years saw their video sharing platform reach a peak of 200 million users before becoming obsolete in 2016 (Rowell 2016). Auditing a brands social media presence can be the difference between being a method of generating brand awareness, versus being a key driver of business growth.

It is easy to see how important my social media presence is for my business, but how can I audit this?

Image credit: CIT Support

Various approaches can be used to audit your brands social media presence. If you’re a company who is spending money on your social media presence, then you may wish to use analytics tools to measure the volume and quality of traffic directed to your site via social media channels. Google Analytics is one such tool, that is free to use. Google Analytics allows you to identify not only how many consumers have been directed to your site through social media, but also which social media channel these visitors were directed to your site by. Google Analytics also allows you to measure the success of individual social media posts, as well as being able to see the influence social media has on purchases made by the consumer.

Here we can see the breakdown of channels that directed the visitor to the site. Credit: Social Media Examiner

Facebook offers a similar tool, known as Facebook Insights. It is also a free tool which gives an overview of your performance. This tool allows a company to produce relevant posts that are positively perceived by the audience.

Facebook Insight measures the following:

• Likes
• Reactions
• Shares
• Clicks
• Comments
• Demographic reach

Analytics tools sound useful, but what if I am more concerned with why something happened, rather than just knowing that it did happen?

Like anything, analytics tools aren’t perfect. They can be great at telling you what you’re good at, but not so great at telling you why you’re good at something. Luckily for you, there are a number of tools that can be used to bridge those gaps in your understanding of customer behaviour. One of which has been outlined below.

Ask questions!

Asking your customers questions is a great way of asking why your users are doing or not doing something. One service that can provide opportunities to ask those who are engaged with your brand on social media is Qualaroo. Qualaroo asks bespoke questions to collect qualitative feedback from users. You may integrate this service into your social media activities by providing links to surveys for customers to complete. You can even consider offering incentives such as being entered into a prize draw for their efforts- contests are a great way of engaging social media users! (Di Pietro and Pantano 2012).

Be careful not to bombard your social media followers with surveys- it is likely that this won’t be appreciated and will drive away potential customers and site visitors. Getting the balance right is essential with this one!

And finally…

It is hoped that this blog has provided you with the basics you need to get started with auditing your social media presence. However, if you’re still stuck for ideas, please see this short video that might be of use.

References

Aggarwal, P. (2004). The Effects of Brand Relationship Norms on Consumer Attitudes and Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(1), pp.87-101.

Di Pietro, L. and Pantano, E. (2012). An empirical investigation of social network influence on consumer purchasing decision: The case of Facebook. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 14(1), pp.18-29.

Gretry, A., Horváth, C., Belei, N. and van Riel, A. (2017). “Don’t pretend to be my friend!” When an informal brand communication style backfires on social media. Journal of Business Research, [online] 74, pp.77-89. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296317300255 [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].