Here are four quick takeaways: How social media contests can help give your brand the extra boost you’re looking for Must-read resources from the episode How One eCommerce Company Generated More Than 41K emails and 10K Social Media Followers – Viper How to sell on Instagram [complete podcast transcript] Brian: Hi everyone! Brian: From Facebook Ads, to generating emails and social media followers, to our favorite social media tools on the market, this is one you won’t want to miss. And this is something we really haven’t talked about a lot here on the show and that’s contests as a marketing strategy. Content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing. Brian: It feels like a lot for any business! Hailley: Alright , before you go, we’re just over half way through 2018 and so we thought we’d share some awesome social media tools that we’ve come across since our last episode on social tools way back in episode #88. Brian: 19. How to say hello to us We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter! Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing strategies from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.
There is always so much happening in the social media marketing industry that it can be a challenge to keep up with all of the latest news and insights.
From constant changes to the Facebook and Instagram algorithms to the silent growth of LinkedIn and the launch of Instagram’s IGTV, marketers and businesses have their hands full.
That’s why we’ve created what we call “Minisodes” on the Buffer Podcast – The Science of Social Media. Minisodes are 10-15 minute shows where we cover all of the latest social media marketing news that you need to know as a business. Join 16,000+ fellow marketers and business owners each week to stay up to date on the latest news, trends, and insights!
This week, we’re covering a massive study that analyzed more than 750,000 Facebook ads, how one eCommerce brand generated thousands of emails and followers, our favorite new social media tools, and more.
Let’s dive in!
What you’ll learn in this episode
What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation between Hailley Griffis and Brian Peters. Short on time? No worries! Here are four quick takeaways:
- How social media contests can help give your brand the extra boost you’re looking for
Must-read resources from the episode
- How One eCommerce Company Generated More Than 41K emails and 10K Social Media Followers – Viper
How to sell on Instagram [complete podcast transcript]
Brian: Hi everyone! I’m Brian Peters and this is The Science of Social Media, a podcast by Buffer. Your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and learning.
Hailley: Welcome to episode #104! I’m Hailley Griffis and today we’ve got a jam-packed show lined up for you. Really excited for this one. Lots of great articles published in the marketing industry this week and we’re sharing the most important takeaways from all of those.
Brian: From Facebook Ads, to generating emails and social media followers, to our favorite social media tools on the market, this is one you won’t want to miss.
Let’s kick off the show!
Hailley: One marketing strategy that seems to thrive in so many different industries and is resilient to constant user behavior changes is…. email.
So naturally, one of the best ways to reach your target customers or audience on a consistent basis is to grow your email lists. Which is, of course, easier said than done.
However, we stumbled across a case study from Viper where they featured an eCommerce business that was able to generate more than 41,000 email signups and 10,000 social media followers in one campaign.
Brian: Yes and with a headline like that, how could we not read it!
In diving into this article I thought, alright here we go with another one of those spammy marketing tactics, but I was pleasantly surprise to to find that the case study and tactics used by this eCommerce company were actually very interesting.
And this is something we really haven’t talked about a lot here on the show and that’s contests as a marketing strategy.
Hailley: You’re right, we really haven’t talked about contest too much on the show.
One thing that I thought was interesting is that if you break down the available marketing channels out there for businesses, there’s really only so many things you can do. Content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing.
But there’s a fourth bucket that they mention and that’s growth and viral marketing, which contests would fit under.
Brian: Yeah and growth or viral marketing I think gets a bad rap because we’ve all had some sort of poor experience with a marketing campaign.
But when done right (and ethically), virality can really sky rocket a specific campaign across the board.
So this specific case study focused on the eCommerce company called Brevite. Which is a backpack company created specifically for photographers.
Hailley: What Brevite did is offered two prizes for folks who entered their contest.
The first prize was a Mavic Drone and the second prize was a backpack for photographers.
And we should stop for a second here to talk about the importance of quality prizes when you’re setting up a contest.
Brian: 100% agreed. Always remember, the closer aligned your prize is your target markets’ interests the more successful your contest will be.
You want people to really want to win your prize so they are willing to share the contest, refer others and complete tasks that the brand sets.
Hailley: In this case, a Mavic Drone and backpack are pretty incredible prizes.
Anyways, the eCommerce company asked for an email address, a follow on social media, and the contestants had to share the content – meaning a Retweet, Facebook share, re-gram, etc)
Which actually seems like a lot, particularly for a smaller eCommerce store!
Brian: It feels like a lot for any business!
But I think that goes back to offering a quality prize. So overall, Brevite invested about $3k in the contest for prizes and ads and what not and ran the campaign for 15 days.
In the end, they saw a sign up conversion rate of about ~65%. Which is just great stuff.
Hailley: Yeah, I’d love to have a 65% conversion rate on anything!
After the contest and scrubbing for quality, their email list went from 1,700 to 37,000, which is about 8 cents per email address. And they gained more than 10,000 followers across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Brian: And of course we won’t leave you hanging. Here are the exact steps they took to promote the content.
Like we said before, they selected a really good prize that aligned with their target audience – and they didn’t go cheap.
They shared the contest constantly on social channels & in select social media groups.
They added the contest to their website – so each relevant landing page had this contest prominently featured – which I think was crucial to the success of this.
Hailley: Agreed – that led to hundreds of people seeing the content.
They emailed their list multiple times to remind them of the…
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