With more than 300 million users and 80 million posts per day, Instagram is a terrific way to get your brand out there. With so many potential customers all you need is something to make it worth their time sharing.
How about a holiday? Is that enough to get you to quickly like and share a post? In my opinion it’s enough to seduce anyone. That’s why Instagram competitions have the potential to be so effective, the only problem is finding the best means of conducting them.
If you have been thinking about running a competition, here is the 6 step guide to doing it right.
Set Goals and Objectives
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. A key to a successful contest is to have a clear purpose, it needs to be relevant. Dobni (2016), explains that in the changing business environment, a lack of understanding of yourself or the target audience can lead to objectives not being met. This can be in the form of not engaging the intended audience and an overall waste in time and investment.
Without a clear goal, you won’t ever know if you were successful. This RACE model by Chaffey (2012), will help you find key metrics in analysing your performance.
Source: SmartInsights
However, always remember that this industry is ever changing, keep updating your metrics regularly to keep up with the times.
Choose Type/ Entry Method
Thekissagency (2016) have identified three of the main contests used to get attention.
Like to win – Users have to like a post and are then automatically entered into the competition.
Hashtag Competitions – These tend to be user-generated content (UGC), where they have use a specified hashtag and share their own photo or video.
Email – Gated Contests – Competitions tend to ask for a like or follow and then require an e-mail account to enter.
Source: Instagram
Set the Rules
When running your competition, you can make the rules as loose or as broad as you want. The only thing you must ensure is that you are lawful and adhere to these promotion guidelines by Instagram.
Other than that, it is up to you. However, one thing that should be considered when running these competitions is how much information you ask for. For your brand, the more information about consumers the better, nevertheless asking for information is a barrier for consumers entering. Hoffman (1999), found that 95% of web users have refused to provide personal information when a website has asked for, and that most people distrust websites with their information.
Create the Hashtag
When people enter or discuss the competition, they will be required to use a unique hashtag to help you identify the entrants. Two of the factors to consider when choosing a hashtag is that it is firstly relevant to the brand and competition and secondly that it is easy to remember and search for.
If you want to analyse hashtags of other competitions, Tedwalker is a great tool to let you search and compare hashtags.
Promote
Just because the competition is on Instagram doesn’t mean that you can’t advertise it elsewhere, let everyone know on all your other social media websites like Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr and put a more detailed description on your website.
This infographic below shows the best times to post content on Instagram. However, if you want to know when is best for your audience, using tools like google analytics will let you know when is best to post for your customers.
Analyse the performance in relation to the goals set at the start, have they been met and if not why not. Analysing the performance may lead to further ideas on what needs to be considered more. Using applications like Iconosquare will help with the tracking of the desired metrics.
Considerations
Imstash discussed some of the factors to consider whether it will be beneficial to use social media competitions
Time, money and effort: These ventures can require a lot of time and be quite taxing for small firms, if the competition distracts you from more important efforts it may not be appropriate.
Temporary Results: These should be seen as temporary results as these contests do not last forever, for longer lasting results other marketing ventures may be more appropriate.
References
Dobni, C.B, Klassen, M, and Sands, D., (2016) Getting to clarity: new ways to think about strategy. Journal of Business Strategy, 37(5), pp.12-21.
Hoffman, D.L., Novak, T.P. and Peralta, M., (1999) Building consumer trust online. Communications of the ACM, 42(4), pp.80-85.
Chaffey, D. and Patron, M., (2012) From web analytics to digital marketing optimization: Increasing the commercial value of digital analytics. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 14(1), pp.30-45.
The leading sports franchises have cracked it. Social media is one of the most effective platforms for digital marketers and the sports industry have found many ways to reach increase their brand image and reach potential customers.
Here are five of the most inventive and successful social media campaigns conducted in the last few years by sports franchises and why they worked so well.
Nike: #DareToZlatan
Campaign: Nike Teamed up with football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a player best known for his charisma and confidence and started a fun twitter and YouTube campaign.
It all started with Zlatan tweeting this, introducing us all to #DareToZlatan
Source: Twitter
Following that, Nike put up these fun videos on their YouTube that include Zlatan winning a penalty against a tiger.
Then started answering his fans questions.
Source: Twitter
The result: This led to Zlatan getting over 60,000 tweets on his main tweets and #DareToZlatan trended worldwide.
Why it worked: Although production and Zlatan’s involvement were inevitably expensive. Nike are using this campaign amongst others to create what Hoffman and Novak (2010) call a social brand, adding to their overarching social business strategy which involves collaborating with others to create a social environment that all stakeholders but particularly customers can benefit from. Emphasising social interaction as a core competency and creating authentic relationships with customers that both Nike and their customers can benefit from.
Adidas: Tango Squads
Campaign: Adidas has reached out to 100 – 250 teenagers between 16 – 19 in 15 key cities worldwide to create their “Tango Squads”. These individuals are all particularly active on social media and by Adidas sending them exclusive products and content prior to release, they are getting them to share this information with their huge followings
Source: Adidas
The result: Adidas created a fresh marketing stream that took advantage of the changing social media scene.
Why it worked: Adidas took advantage of a new marketing stream called the “dark social”, which is the essentially the discovery that a large amount of referral traffic is from individuals sharing websites and products to their friends, ahead of online advertisements and online sharing. This is underpinned by a study by Neilson (2012) who suggest that 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations, compared to the 33% who trust ads. Adidas’ strategy is different from the classic influencer/brand relationship as is dependent on long run relationship, where Adidas are supplying these influencers with agents who help them share products and information. Adidas have been success in steering away from the saturated online advertisement scene and into a more personal means of sharing information.
Reebok: #ToughisBeautiful
Campaign: This was a campaign to market Reebok’s new branch of the organisation “Reebok Women”. The idea was to inspire women that don’t associate with the new fitness craze and make the fitness scene more assessible. Using Instagram as its main platform it showed women of all ages actively working out, and conveyed information on upcoming fitness events. The campaign got support from a multitude of sporting ambassadors that are attempting to empower their audience.
Source: Instagram
The result: The Reebok women Instagram has 312 thousand followers, although this is significantly less than some of its competitors, growth since this campaign has been significant.
Why it worked: This was an example of blue ocean marketing (Kim and Mauborgne, 2004), Reebok is using social media to try and attract a whole new audience for the industry. They are using a positive sentiment to make the brand look welcoming and progressive.
Where Reebok differentiates itself, is by not always showing classically beautiful fitness models, which goes against what is usually successful on Instagram. It is clear they have tried to create a balance but some of the photos have not gone down well, regardless of how empowering the women is
Final Words
Hopefully this has inspired someone who is currently trying to market a company on social media. Unfortunately, there is a key trend with these examples, that being they all required considerable time and funding. However, here are some ways you can still be successful on a smaller budget.
References
Hoffman, G. and Novak, W. (2000) The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success.
In 2015 it finally happened, Google was knocked off the throne of being the most visited website on the internet. In its place stood the humble video sharing website YouTube, however the new king of the internet is not just a place for low quality home videos anymore. It’s now a marketing and advertising goldmine and I’m not talking about those five second ads we love to skip. The better companies are subtler than that, just look at will it blend, a simple concept of pureeing phones and other hard things has led to over 200 million views and an amazing advertising platform for Blend Tec blenders. Your company, whatever the scale, also has a lot to gain from utilising this website and I’ll explain why.
What makes it so great?
Taking statistics from Fortunelords (2017), I have compiled three of the main reasons as to why there is such great potential.
1) Everyone is watching
1 billion people globally watch YouTube Videos every month, it is now the second most used search engine on the internet and unlike Bing and other competitors it searches exclusively videos. Moreover, in an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49-year-olds watch YouTube.
2) Geographical Scope
YouTube is available worldwide, and has become localised in more than 89 countries. The interface itself has also been translated into 76 languages meaning that it can be read in 95% of people’s native language.
3) Available on both desktops and mobiles
The use of apps and responsive web displays has led to an increase in the way that people. Mobile views now account for over half of the total views of videos, with average viewing duration on mobile exceeding 40 minutes.
Now that we can agree that the potential exists. Deciding how you want to use YouTube is essential, Miller (2011), has identified three marketing goals that YouTube can help you achieve.
How YOU can use YouTube
YouTube for Brand Awareness
YouTube has become a way for companies to create and showcase videos that they believe reflect them as a brand. These videos tend to be light hearted and multiple videos with similar characters can be put onto the channel, Berger and Milkman (2013) state that the use of happy and positive sentiments lead to a greater chance of a video being shared and in turn becoming viral.
An example of this can be seen with Old Spice, who have accumulated over 360 million views on their YouTube through their comedic advertisements which started in 2010.
YouTube for single Product Advertising
If you can do it correctly, YouTube is a great opportunity to advertise specific products that you want to feature. The sporting industry has been classically very effective with this, sporting giants Nike have on numerous occasions been successful in creating viral YouTube videos advertising a single new product.
An example of this when advertising their new “Mercurial Superfly V” football boot, the use of an exciting high paced, visually stunning one-and-a-half-minute advertisement managed to rack up over 7 million views.
However, if you aren’t a massive multinational with huge advertising budgets then you may have to be a bit more inventive with your advertising. Refer to the good people at will it blend if you need inspiration.
YouTube for Product Support
With any product, there are always going to be frequently asked questions and problems surrounding the use of it. One way of retaining a good brand image is to offer post sales product support. Rigopoulou (2008) show that the absence of this can affect both short and long customer satisfaction. However, this isn’t cheap if you need to sustain call centers or have experts at shops that can show customers how they to properly use your product.
One obvious example of this is Sky who due to the technical nature of their product, often face problems with customers struggling with their products.
The Downsides
You can’t make people watch your videos. if you don’t want to pay YouTube directly then there is little you can do to make people interested in your content. Moreover, regardless of how inventive your idea is, it’s hard to get noticed in a sea of other firms with the same bright idea.
Secondly, videos can also go viral for all the wrong reasons. Sony in 2014 made a video for their new Play Station Vita, that was exceptionally sexist. Unfortunately for you the video was subsequently taken down, however the Verge sum it up well enough here.
References
Berger, J. and Milkman, K.L. (2013) Emotion and virality: what makes online content go viral?. GfK Marketing Intelligence Review, 5(1), pp.18-23.
Miller, M., (2011). YouTube for business: Online video marketing for any business. Pearson Education.
Rigopoulou, I.D (2008) After-sales service quality as an antecedent of customer satisfaction: The case of electronic appliances. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 18(5), pp.512-527.
My phone vibrates. I check it hoping that it’s a text from a friend or an e-mail confirmation for that parcel I ordered, but no, instead it’s just another marketing e-mail from a website I used once. I ask myself “What’s the point?”, whilst deleting the e-mail having only read the subject line. In a world of social media, search engine marketing and targeted advertisements, e-mail marketing seems a bit wasteful and old fashioned. So why are companies still so inclined to use this kind of marketing?
It Works
According to the Email Marketing Industry Census in 2014 (click HERE to read) around 66% of marketers said that they either received a “good” or “excellent” return on investment by using e-mail marketing, with 8% of businesses getting at least half of their sales through this method (Bawm and Nath, 2014), e-mail marketing therefore provides a genuine utility to businesses if done correctly. So how do marketers get me to open up their e-mails, and more importantly get me onto their websites so I can divulge my card and/or personal information?
Lazy Student or Clever Marketing?
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This was the subject line that was able to rouse my curiosity. “Offers” and “local”, as a lazy student I pride myself in taking the cheaper and easier route in the majority of my life decisions, this e-mail was providing me an opportunity to do exactly that.
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I clicked on the e-mail to find Just Eat greeting me like a friend, using my first name, a picture of people enjoying food and offering me a chance to save some money (but only for today). Did I even stand a chance?
Fariborzi and Zahedifard (2012) have created a list of attributes that are consistent in effective e-mail marketing campaigns, by comparing them to Just Eat’s e-mail I will be able tell if it was objectively a good campaign.
Short Subject Line?
Absolutely. Just Eat did this very effectively by using soundbite phrases to quickly convey their point “top offers”, “discover one now”. This meant I could be enticed quickly whilst it also being short enough to be practical to mobile phone users. That being said, if I did not recognise the company Just Eat by including my name I would have straight away known this wasn’t spam.
Content with Utility?
Yes. It’s important that there is a clear benefit from me opening this e-mail, this can be done with “free” goods, or offers available (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012). Just Eat were offering me 20% off my favourite cuisine (they knew this because I order this food off Just Eat a lot), with a very convenient box that simply said “order”. However, there was not too much option, what if I fancied something different? Perhaps multiple options would have helped if the sole offer didn’t work.
Personalised?
Multiple times, in fact they had used my name twice in the first two sentences. Also using informal language to make it seem like they were a friend doing me a favour “whenever there’s a special offer on in BN2 we’ll be the first to let you know”, how kind. That being said they could have personalised it in a different way, maybe mentioning what is popular in my area right now.
Clear Placement?
Sure. The main body of text was directly in the middle of the e-mail with the text centralised that varied in size, colour and boldness. I was directly drawn to the offer, then only read the surrounding sentences to see why they were being so kind. Again the sentences were short and snappy, it was almost as if they knew I was lazy and didn’t want to read the whole text. The offer did seem slapped on a template though, Just Eat may have benefited from pictures of someone eating the same cuisine as they were discounting.
Verdict
Objectively an effective e-mail campaign, however I’m still unsure about whether it was the quality of the e-mail/offer that enticed me or the fact it was conveniently in my inbox and put the idea in my head. Would another company have been just as effective even if it was not as professionally done? Potentially. That being said, although e-mail marketing may not be seen as contemporary as other marketing means, it is still effective. So well done Just Eat, I’m sure I’ll visiting you again soon enough.
Here is a handy website if you yourself want to implement your own e-marketing campaign:
Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.
Fariborzi , E., & Zahedifard, M. (2012). E-mail marketing: Advantages, disadvantages and improving techniques. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning, 232-238
L. Bawm and R. P. D. Nath, “A Conceptual Model for effective email marketing,” Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT), 2014 17th International Conference on, Dhaka, 2014, pp. 250-256.
Alongside the start of the new series of Game of Thrones (GOT) Sky hired marketing company DDB to try and penetrate the New Zealand market in an attempt to promote it’s new paid channel Soho (Game of Thrones Case Study.pdf). DDB utilized Brandwatch Analytics to identify the main themes that were prolific in the eyes of the current viewers, the hatred of King Jeoffrey (one of the more darker characters) was especially poignant in this market and a campaign to take advantage of this was created. They created a life sized version of Jeoffrey and put a noose around his neck, the current viewership identified with this figure and started taking pictures and sharing them on social media. Alongside these pictures onlookers put the hashtag #bringdowntheking which tightened the noose around the King’s neck, this aided DDB’s campaign to reach a wider audience where they were able to record 875,000 interactions on twitter and reaching 43 million people in 168 countries. In addition to this they were able to get attention from local and national news networks that conveyed the sentiment of the show to the potential market, achieving the aims outlined by Sky. This is an example of a campaign that is not immediately accessible to the potential market however, by using the strong feelings of the current market they were able to stimulate enthusiasm and curiosity for the cause.
