Facebook Marketing Fun

More than any other social media marketing technology out there, Facebook is making connection and engagement with fans and customers deeper, easier, and more creative than ever before. The opportunities to creatively connect and sell are everywhere.

For example, back in August, Baskin Robbins began offering free ice cream to those who would follow the company on Facebook and encourage others to follow as well. Called Group Scoop, groups of Facebook members who could grow to 31 (like flavors—get it?) people would all be rewarded with coupons for free treats. It was sort of like one of those “bring three friends and get a free cone” type campaigns of old, but all done online where the news—and marketing success—can spread much more quickly.

In October, Walmart took this approach a step further, developing its own application to harness the marketing and customer-engagement possibilities of social media. Called Crowdsaver, the app basically lets customers (technically, those who are “Fans” of the company on Facebook) vote on which deals the retail giant should offer. The app meets customer desires for choice, control, and interaction, and keeps customers coming back to the site over and over again to check for new deals.

Both of these campaigns gave customers incentive to “spread the word” about the companies, rewarded those who were active in following the companies on Facebook, and gave customers a feeling of control over the chance to save money.

Location Mattered

Thanks to the rapid rise of smartphones (and the IT infrastructure to support them), location matters more than ever in Internet marketing.

For example, apps like FourSquare and Gowalla—those “check in” apps you probably see on Twitter streams and Facebook walls everywhere—sort of make a game out location-based web usage. The apps allow users to “check in” and comment on wherever they’re proud to be, and rewards them with virtual badges and titles (and the social utility of having everyone they know online know exactly where they are anytime they go out to eat). They create incentive to, say, share where they’re shopping and eating. You can imagine why that might matter to stores and restaurants.

Back in April, McDonalds showed just how easily you can capitalize on those incentives. The ubiquitous fast food chain gave away gift cards for people checking in at McDonald’s. The result was a 33 percent increase in foot traffic, and more than 50 media stories about the campaign, generating enormous additional publicity. 600,000 people began following the company online.

Google, Facebook, and just about all the other social media and search heavyweights are beginning to dip a few big fat toes into the LBS game as well, which just means… location matters. Increasingly. Keep an eye out for creative ways to capitalize.