As individuals become more and more tech-savvy, new avenues are opening up for companies and organizations in the realm of digital marketing. While there are certain formulas that work for traditional media, digital marketing is a whole other ballgame. It requires a well-rounded approach to marketing and advertising as a whole, an immediate response time, engagement with the viewer, responsive maintenance and management, and technology prowess. As consumers grow more accustomed to immediacy from brands, it is imperative that companies start trying to capitalize on this new marketing opportunity. This article is about how Mediaura helped LJS leap into the realm of QSR Social Media Marketing.
Partnering with an agency or digital partner who not only has the technological “know-how” but also the experience and a successful track record is crucial. When developed and executed correctly, a digital marketing campaign has an audience reach that has never been seen before. Before digital marketing, specifically social media marketing, emerged – reaching a global audience would have been costly for some companies and absolutely unthinkable for most. However, with the emergence of social media, brands and consumers can interact with one another in ways that would previously be unthinkable.
Mediaura is proud of our multiple partnerships with companies that have selected us as their digital marketing partner, and we use every tool at our disposal to ensure the success of their campaigns and marketing strategies. This includes having dedicated team members who are experts in social media – more specifically, social media marketing campaigns.
Did you know that there are over 900 million active users on Facebook today? That means it is likely to pass the 1 Billion benchmark before the end of the year. Comparatively speaking, the next largest social media enterprise is Twitter, boasting over 500 million active accounts.
Let’s put this in a more illustrative way. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous region in the world. Currently, it’s roughly 300 million individuals less than India and some 400 million people fewer than China. More importantly for American companies, Facebook currently has three times the population of the United States of America alone.
Those are a lot of potential consumers and clients!
That is why digital marketing is such a vastly growing market, and if your company isn’t thinking of how to make the most of this new market, then you’re going to be quickly left behind.
Long John Silver’s & QSR Social Media Marketing
Mediaura has enjoyed a wonderful partnership with the Long John Silver’s organization. Their team members are impressively forward-thinking, engaged, and constantly evolving their marketing strategies in order to keep at the forefront of the digital revolution. This is why we were very excited when they developed the “Tails, We Win” sweepstakes to promote their Crispy Panko Shrimp and Dipping Sauces.
The overall concept is that Long John Silver’s Facebook users are able to vote on what Crispy Panko Shrimp dipping sauce they prefer; cocktail sauce or sweet Thai chili sauce. Seems pretty straightforward right? However, Long John Silver’s wanted to make this a memorable and exciting campaign for its Facebook fan base. So the question arose, “How do we increase our audience and engage them in this contest?”
This is how the “Tails, We Win” sweepstakes was born.
How The Sweepstakes Works
“Tails, We Win” is a fantastic example of leveraging a branding opportunity and increasing your audience by rallying people behind your idea. Remember, excitement is contagious!
The concept for the campaign is this: there are two “Parties” that users can vote for: The Cocktail Party and The Chili Party. Users are encouraged to not only “vote” for their preferred dipping sauce. They also become registered to win a free digital tablet by voting as well. So instead of just having your average poll or contest where users can register to win an item, we’ve taken it up a notch to drive LJS Facebook fans to “Let Their Voice Be Heard” as well.
It’s barely a week into the contest, and you’re probably wondering what the response has been so far. Well let me tell you, the response has been phenomenal, but more on that later…
For right now, let’s walk through how Mediaura has worked with the Long John Silver’s team to make this campaign a success, and highlight why utilizing an experienced Social Media Marketing Strategist and Digital Partner is vital for proper execution.
“Tails, We Win”
Facebook campaigns can sometimes feel quite in-depth and overwhelming, and this is where an experienced digital partner starts to become handy. You see, Facebook has very stringent guidelines on how promotions and contests can be executed through their social media platform. For instance, companies cannot require or utilize the “Like” feature as a prerequisite for a sweepstakes campaign nor are they permitted to notify the winner through Facebook once the contest has been completed. Now you’re probably thinking, “well how do you do it?” Well, it requires a few extra steps, but the results are well worth it.
The first thing we needed to do was modify the existing Long John Silver’s Facebook page to reflect the contest and include a “call to action” that was easily visible to the viewer.
As you can see, we changed the main profile image as well as the main Timeline cover photo, so that users would be informed not only of the contest but what they would win and how to register. Just from a quick glance the viewer learns about “Tails, We Win”, the existence of both The Chili Party and The Cocktail Party, as well as what they could qualify to win (i.e. A Digital Tablet).
The next step was to create the individual pages for The Cocktail Party and the Chili Party. The key here was branding each page with its own unique voice and message. This gives “personality” to the products and helps users to identify with the brand itself.
The branding and tonality of each page were important. For The Cocktail Party, the voice is more distinguished, proper, and reserved. It is dismissive of the “new and different” with reverence for its rich tradition. The Cocktail Party exudes class and tells the viewer that cocktail dipping sauce is the “only way to dip.” It appeals to viewers to vote for a “classic.”
On the other end of the spectrum, we have The Chili Party, which is the representation of the Sweet Thai Chili dipping sauce. The tonality and voice here is one that is quirky, edgy, outgoing, and a little snarky. It is the self-identified voice of change “for the people.” There is more of a lighter tone with The Chili Party. It is humorous and more self-referential.
Viewers are quickly able to distinguish the qualities and differences embodied by each of the two “Parties.” The two brands interact with one another in such a way that further enhances the message. For example, a post by The Chili Party may read “We’ve been to your cocktail party. Got bored and left before the ice sculpture melted.” Whereas The Cocktail Party would respond with, “Cocktail Sauce and Crispy Panko Shrimp. No brainer, right? Well, The Chili Party doesn’t seem to think so. It may be sweet and it may be spicy, but we were here first! They’re called ‘The Classics’ for a reason.”
For each of these pages, we also created a custom application that would allow Long John Silver’s to have the icons for each party as the first line of images below their cover photo. Users could quickly see images of the Crispy Panko Shrimp, where to vote, and links to the two respective Parties. On each of the individual pages, these applications were modified, so that users could easily navigate between the two pages to learn more about the contest. This is just another way that we helped with QSR Social Media Marketing.
How To Vote
The next issue was to determine the best way for users to vote. Mediaura created a custom voting interface that allowed users to register their email (remember, you can’t notify them via Facebook), vote for their favorite party, link to the individual Party Facebook pages, as well as read the Official Contest Rules.
The application we created looks like this:
After the user has successfully registered their email, selects their party, and votes, they are notified that their submission was a success.
Once the user has successfully voted for the Party of their choice, they are brought to this page where they can register for the Long John Silver’s Fishbowl email club.
When a user clicks on the link to read the entire Official Contest Rules, they are taken to the LJSPromotions page where they can read all of the Sweepstakes information as well as learn about upcoming offers.
Below is a screenshot of the “Tails, We Win” Sweepstakes rules and guidelines.
Engaging The Audience
Many organizations undervalue the role that Social Media marketing can play in their business. So “What is the value of a ‘Like?” you may ask. Well, it’s understandably still a common question, but there have been some pretty interesting case studies done recently regarding the Facebook Fan value. I mean, the “ROI of Social Media” is always a valuable question to ask.
One such study revealed that Brand Preference is much higher in ‘Facebook Fans’ than regular users. That part seems fairly obvious, right? However, research done in the United Kingdom took Facebook fans and compared results with a sample of general users, and found that the average retail value of one brand’s fans on Facebook was worth £198.64 more to the brand a year than non-fans.
There is also a skilled art to managing and maintaining Social Media campaigns. Many brands fall short of the mark as they adopt a “Build It And They Will Come” mentality, which is the antithesis of how Social Media campaigns need to operate. Instead, organizations need to interact with their fans in “real-time” and monitor their Social Media campaigns around the clock – yet another reason a dedicated and experienced partner is a valuable tool in your brand’s arsenal.
Social media has brought people and corporations closer to each other than anything before. It has allowed us to communicate faster and more effectively with one another.
I once heard a great example from the International News Media Association, who said that initially, brand communication was like trees. There was only one tree and communication was in mass to the audience (radio, TV, print). Then, branches came along and people started to have different verticals (topical specific magazines, newspapers, etc). When online came into the picture, leaves emerged on the tree, and information sources (blogs, YouTube clips, articles) became more quickly available. But with Social Media, they said, the “leaves started talking to one another.”
For companies that haven’t developed a Social Media branding strategy (or have yet to fully realize a truly successful one), this is a very new thing. A lot of companies get this right, but not all of them.
It’s vital for brands to not only promote a brand or a message but to also engage and interact with their audience. If Facebook users are brand “fans” then your organization needs to be the celebrity that is willing to stand out in the rain to sign thousands of autographs. There is really nothing more arrogant in the world of Social Media than a brand that closes off its communication with consumers.
For the Long John Silver’s “Tails, We Win” campaign, Mediaura works to not only manage the hosting, development, and creation of the online branding but also go a step further to engage the audience. By working closely with the brand we are able to embody the tonality and voice and work to compel viewers to promote the message themselves as well. Viewer engagement in Social Media is paramount.
Here are some examples from Long John Silver’s “Tails, We Win” campaign:
These are just a sample, but you can visit the individual pages to see the communication between the LJS brand and its viewers.
Result So Far
“Tails, We Win” is another example of a successful Social Media marketing campaign executed by Mediaura and one of our clients. For those of you who are reading this and would like tangible numbers, we’ll give you an idea of those right now.
The “Tails, We Win” Facebook campaign was launched approximately a week ago, and just through leveraging the Facebook social media platform, the contest has added THOUSANDS of new page “Likes” (or “Fans”) for the Long John Silver’s Facebook page and over 10,000 users have registered for the contest to “Let Their Voice Be Heard.”
The best part? There are still several weeks in this contest to go, so the response to this unique contest has been a success for both Mediaura and Long John Silver’s…and it will continue to grow.
Social Media Marketing
If your company or organization is interested in learning how they could benefit from a memorable Social Media campaign, contact us today. Our team members will be happy to sit and discuss your needs, as well as make recommendations that are customized for your own unique brand.
