1. Define The Purpose and Goals of Your Contest – Outlining the purpose of your contest (ex. to increase engagement, to grow your Fanbase or to promote brand awareness), can get you going in the right direction. It’ll help you to pick the right type of prize and target the right people. And setting some simple goals will help you to stay within your budget and identify when you should consider making modifications to your target audience or related contest promotion activities.

2. Choose the Right Prize – Because contests can offer outstanding results, there a lot of them going on all the time. So it’s important that you make your contest stand out. The best way to differentiate yourself is by choosing the right prize to offer. Simply giving out a free random prize like an iPad that has nothing to do with your brand just won’t cut it. Also, the prize you offer doesn’t have to be expensive or cost you a lot of money. You can offer them one of your products or services, but be careful; giving away something that you normally sell might encourage people not to buy until they find out if they won. An accessory for something you sell, or an upgrade might be a better choice for a prize. Also you could offer a free ticket or pass to an upcoming event you’re sponsoring. The more appealing the prize is to your specific brand and Fanbase, the better.

3. Select the Contest Type and Timeframe – Next you’ll need to decide on the type of contest you’re going to run. That will include deciding on the contest rules and how someone will win. Some of the most common types of contests are Referral Rewards (people earn rewards based on the number of friends they get to “Like” your page); Photo and Video contests (where people can submit their own media and vote for their favorites); Caption contests (where people input and vote on their favorite picture captions) and the most popular contest of them all, the Sweepstakes (where people simply enter and a random winner is chosen). Contest timeframes can vary depending on your goals, but typically it should be active for 30 days, or less.

4. Keep it Simple – In an effort to differentiate your contest you must avoid trying to be super-innovative and as a result create something that’s way too complicated to enter. The most successful contests are those that make it easy to participate. Also, the more data that you ask for in the contest entry form, the fewer entries you’ll get. In fact, even if you only ask for a name and an email address, you’ll get far fewer entries than if you didn’t ask for that information. That may not be a bad thing. Contests generally require that the person “Like” the Page before they get to the contest entry form (using a form called a “Fangate”).  So, you’ll still get a lot of “Likes,” while only your best potential customers will actually end up in your email database.

5. Know the Rules – Facebook has a lot of different rules in place, some of which may affect your advertising while others may hinder your promotional ideas. For example, knowing that you can’t contact winners of a promotion through Facebook or that you’ll need a third-party app for using “likes” as the first step for entering the contest are important rules. Learn Facebook’s contest rules and regulations and make sure you’re in compliance. A failure to adhere to the rules can have your promotion rendered null and void.

6. Select the Right Facebook Marketing App – In the old days most businesses had to hire an iFrames programmer to set up their Facebook contest page. But those days are long gone. There are numerous DIY (Do it Yourself) apps available today for setting up Facebook contests without needing any technical expertise. Here’s some of the solutions that you may want to consider: OfferPop, North Social, Wishpond and SnapApp. Finally, it’s important to note that 50% of Facebook users are on their mobile phone – and this segment is growing rapidly. So make sure that your contest is mobile-friendly and you’ll find that anywhere from 30-60% of the entries will come from mobile devices.

7. Promote Your Contest – Yes, you’ve created a Facebook contest, but you can promote it in all kinds of places, including: your website, blog, newsletters and emails, in-store signage, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media properties; advertise your contest all over the web. But, maybe the best place to advertise your Facebook contest is Facebook itself. Using Facebook advertising you can micro-target your contest to people who are most likely to become future customers or clients. Also, you can promote your contest in a Facebook post that you “Boost” so that it shows up in the news feed of all your Fans as well as the news feed of their friends and family.

8. Track Your Results – While your contest is running, you should track your results and make sure that your goals are being achieved. Are you getting the amount of likes, shares, comments, fan data, emails, and visits to your site that you were expecting? If not, make the needed tweaks to your contest and its promotion to get you back on track. If one of your goals is sales, then ultimately you will also need to measure the number of “conversions” (sales transactions) and how much revenue and ROI you made as a direct result of the campaign. Google Analytics can provide conversion information for you, and it’s completely free to use.

What have been some of your best and worst Facebook contest experiences? Please share them in the comments below.

The post A Winning Formula For Facebook Contests appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Here’s a couple of summarized takeaways from the article, The Business of Phish:

Over the past 4 years Phish has generated $120 million in ticket sales, yet by more typical measures of a band’s success (album sales – Phish’s are minuscule, Billboard Top 10 rankings – none, radio airplay – limited, hit songs – out of the 883 songs Phish has performed none have been hits, and music videos – they only have one and that was heavily mocked)  the band isn’t popular at all.

“Phish doesn’t make money by selling music. They make money by selling live music, and that, it turns out, is a more durable business model.”

The lessons that Phish’s success offers to business owners, CEOs and Marketing professionals are fundamental, yet brilliant.  Their success as a band and as a profitable enterprise should be discussed in every business school in the country; it’s pure genius.

Here are the 10 business lessons that Phish’s success teaches us:

1. Don’t be afraid to build a business or revenue model that plays to your strengths, even if it’s non-conventional.

2. When opportunities don’t present themselves in a timely manner take calculated risks.

3. Slowly, organically build your audience. Be willing to gain a following slowly, steadily, one fan/customer a time.  Look for a place to start your business where it will be relatively easy to get it going.

4. Bootstrap if you can.  Don’t be in a rush to get third-party investors.  You will have more control over things and can do things your own way when you don’t have to please others.

5. Work harder and create a superior product.  As Malcom Gladwell notes: “Deliberate practice” to achieve virtuoso status explains genius.

6. Take the time and put forth the effort to learn how to work together effectively as a team.

7. Don’t just deliver content, engage your audience with it.  Create opportunities for your fans/customers to get together and have fun.

8. Create unique, not boiler-plate products, services and experiences.  When your fans/customers realize that they could miss out on something unique and special they won’t want to miss it.

9. Encourage and reward fan sharing.

10. You will be more profitable if you maximize the value of your existing fans/customers rather than always having to chase after and depend on new ones for your ongoing success. Cater to your existing fans/customers.

“Phish is wildly eclectic, endlessly resourceful, and ever unpredictable, They were at the forefront of a movement, an organic alternative to the mainstream status quo that caught the imagination of millions.“

Now wouldn’t you like to say the same for your company?

For more on how Phish lived and prospered from these lessons, be sure to check out the complete The Business of Phish article.

The post 10 Business Lessons from One of the Greatest Live Rock and Roll Bands in History appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

I am one of those people who was merrily going along using the combination of Google Alerts, RSS Feeds, Google Reader and BufferApp as my preferred set of tools for finding interesting third-party content on particular subjects of interest and sharing them on my own Facebook Pages or others that I help to manage.

When Google announced that they were discontinuing Google Reader and made Google Alerts disappear I was perturbed to say the least.

My initial knee-jerk reaction was to try to find a set of tools that were as similar to the ones I was using as possible.  It wasn’t really all that hard.  With a little research I was able to come up with Talkwalker Alerts as an alternative to Google Alerts and Feedly as my Google Reader replacement.  I was a happy camper and back in my comfort zone.

But, you know what?  When it comes to digital marketing best practices and the technologies to support them, a comfort zone is not always the best place to be.  You miss a lot, you fall behind, you slowly lose your edge.

Don’t get me wrong… I still love the value I get from finding new great content sources with “alerts” and then using RSS Feeds to deliver all the new content from my favorite sources to one easy to use platform.

But, I have to admit that in my journey to find replacements for my Google technology tools, I quickly began to see just how far behind the content curation technology curve I had become.

I’ve been experimenting with Trap.it who proudly claims that they are the “world’s most advanced personalized content discovery application.”   After all, It’s built with Artificial Intelligence technology that was originally developed for DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

I also came across XYDO.  A content curation platform that “helps you find trending videos, articles, blog posts and photos relevant to your business and facilitates sharing it with your audience.”  Geez, Jason Falls was even on the company’s home page.  How could I have not known about it.

There are other interesting looking content curation solutions like Pearltrees, Curata and Content Gems which I haven’t had a chance to play with yet.

There’s  Scoop.it and Paper.li for finding and publishing content on cool looking online magazines and then sharing these on your other social media properties.

But the application that intrigued me right away was Storify and specifically the new “Storify for Business” which was in the news last week.  Storify is a tool to either alone, or collaboratively, construct details about a conference, event or topic from sources and content (articles, video, pictures, text snip-its social media posts) from all over the web and then then organize and comment on them so that they tell a story.  The business version allows people and companies to create private stories and to customize them to match your blog style.  Storify is also being used to create reports that show actual examples of the current online sentiment towards a company or brand.

Here’s an example of a Story I constructed in Storify about a unique content application I’ve run across mulu.me and its Founder and CEO Amaryllis Fox.

So, what are your favorite content curation tools and why do you like them?  Please comment below.

The post Apps That’ll Make You A Content Curator Extraordinaire appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Yes, starting your reputation management program by “listening” is important, but if you don’t take the time to understand what you’ve found and you don’t take appropriate and timely action, then listening is pretty much a waste of time.

So, in this post, I’m going to discuss the two other critical and inter-related components to an effective reputation management program; understanding and acting on what you’ve discovered.

Who’s Listening & Responding To What’s Being Said?

If you’re a small business – a local retailer, a restauranteur, a bed & breakfast owner, a financial advisor, a medical practitioner, etc. etc. you’re probably extremely busy and may not be all that savvy when it comes to social media tools and best practices. The tendency will be for you to delegate these responsibilities to a young employee who enjoys social media and seems to know what they are doing.

Of course this strategy could work, but it could also be a recipe for disaster.  Using social media for business is totally different than using it for personal enjoyment.  For businesses, being social online should be all about getting, keeping and growing customers; and doing this successfully requires knowledge, experience and skills that often only social media professionals or people who’ve stayed at a Holiday Inn have.

To be successful with reputation management, you’re going to need best practice processes for gathering information, identifying its relevance, understanding the sentiment and most importantly, when, if, and how to respond.

Although your chosen technology tool can help, only people who are very knowledgeable about your business, its brand promise, and social media practices and etiquette will be able to properly interpret what the data all means, answer the tough questions and (most importantly) know what the appropriate action/response is.

Real social media intelligence is the combination of technology and expert insight by knowledgeable people.

Interpreting What You Find

Analyzing and interpreting the comments you find on Facebook, Twitter, Review and Check-in web sites is a skill in itself.  The true meaning and value of what’s being said is not always obvious.

Here are some of the opportunities that might be found with your “listening” tool that can be of value to your business and/or its reputation:

* Generating New Leads – “Hi Sue, I’m heading to Denver this morning, wanna have lunch?”  This could be an opportunity for a Denver restaurant to offer a promo/invite to their establishment. Bottom line: You need to be on the look out for people who are, or might be, interested in your products and services and appropriately engage them.

* Buzz Tracking – You, or your business, get some positive local coverage in a paper, magazine, or on the radio or TV.  Tracking the spread of the social media response your business gets as result, facilitating the “virality” of this content, being able to determine what the full (buzz) life-cycle is, can all help you to take advantage of an excellent marketing opportunity.

* Brand Reputation – Comments about your business and its products and services can help you to get a handle on how it’s currently perceived and how customers rate you versus your competitors.  You may find opportunities to make improvements to your business here. Or, when the comments are positive, your response could help to create more “brand advocates”.

* Fostering Dialogue and Promoting Advocacy – Identifying and engaging key influencers could build positive spin for your business with these people.

* Crisis Management – If there’s a negative conversation swirling around about your business or brand you not only want to know about it, but you want to be able to respond, when appropriate, to prevent and mitigate any further damage to your business’s reputation.

* Customer Support – Uncovering and responding quickly and appropriately to customer service questions and issues is of course of paramount importance.

Engaging with Prospects and Customers

Engagement in social media is different for every business. And getting started can be daunting, especially after you’ve spent a lot of time listening.

There are varying ways to engage using social media depending on the source of and type of information you’ve uncovered.  As I noted above, you can answer a question, share some information, offer to be helpful to someone and show interest in the needs of your prospects and customers.

Remember, engaging successfully requires an understanding of what to do with social media intelligence once you have it, making sure the right people in your business are aware of it and finally, that each item requiring engagement is responded to appropriately and on a timely basis.

As Sebastian Cowie noted in his post, Online Reputation Management – 5 Tips To Protect Your Brand –

To do this successfully, you’ll need to have a plan in place outlining how to react to each type of comment that arises – especially negative comments. Reacting inappropriately can and will have a negative effect on your business and/or brand, so careful planning is essential.

It is usually best to have one person, or a small group of people, take charge of reacting to negative comments.  When you find a negative blog post, comment or review that warrants a response, act quickly, but make sure that you are professional and courteous at all times. Even if you don’t change the mind of the original commenter, other people will see that you are trying to resolve the situation professionally, and this can go in your favor.

It is also a good idea to react to positive mentions. When you find a positive review or simply someone announcing how much they love what you do, a quick ‘thank you’ can go a long way. It shows that you care about your customers and listen to what they are saying, and it can be a great way to improve brand loyalty.

Most importantly, engagement does not usually end with a social media response alone.  Taking meaningful action some times requires “real” change within your organization.

Meaningful customer-focused engagement often includes making changes to the way you’re doing things; changes to your policies and procedures, changes to how your employees interact with prospects and customers and changes to how you collaborate.

Responding To Negative Criticism

There’s always a chance that you may get up one morning go to your listening tool and get an unpleasant surprise… a negative comment.

The first thing you’ll need to determine is IF you should respond.  If you decide that a response is warranted, then you’ll need to figure out how to respond.

If someone is trashing you and their comments seems ridiculous and unreasonable then DO NOT respond.  Nothing good will come of it.  Keep thinking about what Kenny Rogers once sang “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold, em, know when to walk away and when to run.”  Don’t “gamble” with your online reputation and get into an online fight with an unreasonable person.  These type of people tend to be notoriously stubborn and vocal… so walk away.  Eventually positive comments will push a lone negative one to the side.

As Christopher Null noted in his article, How to clean up your business’s online reputation –

What if you believe that a complainer has the capability to engage in a mature debate instead of a hostile flame war? Can a measured response ever be appropriate?

Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik thinks that it’s possible.  “Unless the person is truly nasty and it’s clear there’s no room for productive conversation, in most cases you should indicate your desire to resolve the situation as soon as possible. Let them know you’ll contact them–this protects their privacy and enables you to fix the issue without an online audience. Make sure to follow through,” he says.  And remember: If someone is griping about your business or its products, they might have a valid complaint. Consider all complaints seriously and take corrective action when it’s warranted.

So how about some discussion about how you’ve handled your online reputation — Please comment below… but be nice!

The post People Try To Put Us d-Down, Talkin’ ’bout Your Reputation – Part 2 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Today, it is incredibly easy for anyone to post positive or negative comments and reviews about you or your business online; and these posts by people like you and me can not only go viral very quickly, but can, and do, affect people’s behaviors.

To make matters more confusing for consumers, just as more and more of them are relying on internet-based comments and reviews to make buying decisions, new research from Gartner notes that it’s going to be more difficult to trust what you see online. Paid social media interactions are becoming a more established practice and Gartner is predicting that by 2014, some 10%-15% of all social media reviews and other forms of engagement will be fake, paid for by the companies getting endorsed. Of course Gartner isn’t predicting how many companies will unscrupulously post negative reviews and comments about their competitors, but I’m sure it happens.

Are You Monitoring Your Online Reputation?

Less than a decade ago business’s listened to their customers primarily through email and phone communications while occasionally using surveys and focus groups for getting customer feedback. But as social media exploded, Social Media Monitoring technology tools like Radian 6, Attensity, Lithium and many others came on the market to the meet the social media listening, analysis and engagement needs of larger enterprises.

Today it is of paramount importance that businesses of every size, including small, local retailers, restauranteurs, bed & breakfasts, financial advisors, medical practitioners and other professionals and mom & pops get on board with online reputation management.

Quite frankly, I simply can’t believe how many small businesses are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to managing their online reputation; risking their livelihood on the hope that disgruntled ex-employees, competitors, or unreasonable customers will not destroy the reputation that they have, in many cases, taken years to build.

Get Started By “Listening”

There are three inter-related components to an effective reputation management process; listening, analyzing and engaging. This post will focus on listening, while Part 2 will focus on analyzing and engaging.

As a colleague of mine once said, “If you want to be successful in your business and with social media in particular, you’ve got to start by listening.”

You simply must be scouring the web for (at a minimum) the following:

• Who’s saying what about my business (or brand) and how influential are they?
• Is what’s being said about my business good, bad or indifferent?
• What appears to be triggering negative comments or reviews?
• Where are my customers posting things about my business (what Apps and websites)
• How complete and accurate are my listings in the various online directories and review Apps?
• What’s being said about my competitors (how does my business compare or rank against others?)

Successful listening programs will uncover how your customers and others perceive your brand and could help you to identify the extent to which you’re delivering on your promises.

When customer experiences are out of line with customer expectations — either positively or negatively, they become increasingly likely to opine than when expectations are simply met.  So be sure to listen for compliments, complaints, problems and unmet needs. As you implement your listening program, you just may also uncover suggestions for making improvements to your business, products and services.

Listening Technology Tools

My favorite tools for listening to what’s being said on the web (web pages, blogs posts and comments, news, forum conversations, press releases, videos, pictures, etc.) is a combination of Google Alerts and Google Reader.

Set up Google Alerts to search for any mentions of your business, your products and services, your competitors, your industry and any other content that might be of interest to you and your customers. But, instead of getting daily emails from your Alerts, set them up to direct the found content to a Google Reader account you’ve specifically set up to manage your online listening program. Then each day, all you need to do is peruse the content delivered to your Google Reader for items that are in need of further review or action.

But how about all of the other websites and Apps? For example, social media sites like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter; online directories like 411.com, DexKnows, MerchantCircle and Superpages; check-in Apps like Foursquare; review and comment sites like Yelp, Trip Advisor; and industry-specific review sites such as Wellness.com and Doctoroogle.com for doctors and dentists, DealerRater and Edmunds.com for car dealers and Houzz where consumers gather to talk about remodeling and other hobbies but liberally sprinkle vendor recommendations.

There’s not enough time in the day to go to all of these sites, (and the hundreds of others), to see if there are any mentions of your business, brand or products. That’s where a good “listening” tool will help. It will make the listening process not only more effective but much more efficient.

Of course if you’re a mid to large enterprise you should consider one of the social media monitoring tools I mentioned earlier. But if you’re a small, local business these products will have way more functionality than you need and will probably be too expensive for you, as well.

Here’s some listening/reputation management tools for small businesses:

• Vendasta
• Trackur
• Local Reputation
• Chatmeter

Closing Comments 

Reputation management has taken hold at many mid to large-sized enterprises whom recognize the need to track what people are saying about their company, brands and products. It’s the small business community that still represents a largely untapped market for reputation management tools.

So why hasn’t reputation management become a de facto part of every small business marketing plan? Many experts, including me, thought it would have happened by now.

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below; and stay-tuned for part 2 of this post which will cover how to analyze what you find and engage the people who have commented about or reviewed your business.

The post People Try To Put Us d-Down, Talkin’ ’bout Your Reputation – Part 1 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Well — hooray for Facebook entrepreneurs… thanks to you I’m done messing with the complexities of a code-based approach and I’m in my milieu; evaluating and selecting marketing solutions.

Today one can just select a Facebook Fan Page Marketing App, (from the plethora available) work up some graphics, fill out some forms, spin a pitch and voila you’re building your Fan base.

But beyond just cranking out contests and promos there’s a number of other important dynamics that are at play in today’s world of Facebook marketing.

First, as most are aware at this point, Facebook stopped showing posts from Fan pages to to all of its Fans.  From the pages that I administer it seems that, on average, only 10-15% of your Fans will see a given post in their News feeds. You’ve got to pay up to get your post viewer count up.

Secondly, with so much competition for attention on Facebook, engagement is the new differentiator. A recent article in Forbes by Christine Crandell noted that:

“Customers expect vendors to invest financially, intellectually and emotionally in understanding and consistently meeting their evolving expectations.” 

Yet, according to a recent survey, only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations.

Wow, now that sounds like an opportunity to me!

Accordingly, your marketing plans for 2013 should include improving the engagement of your Fan base with the goal of exceeding their expectations. But, saying it is a lot easier then doing it.

One component to success could be going beyond using first generation Facebook marketing solutions that just offer sweepstakes, photo and video voting, coupons, etc. to build a Fan base.

There are Facebook marketing solutions popping up that offer something new, but something I find very compelling — the ability to learn about and understand what motivates your Fans.

Here’s what intrigues me about these Apps:

1. Their imbedded analytics can help you to understand what type of content is most engaging to your Fans and over time, which specific Fans are interested in what specific content types and topics,
2. They make your promotions and offers look as good on mobile devices as they do on websites. People accessing social from their mobile device has risen from just over a third (37%) in 2011, to more than (46%) in 2012.   Tablet users accessing social rose from just 3% in 2011 to 16% in 2012.  Mobile-focused strategies must be on the table for marketing success in 2013.
3. As people “sign up” for your various promotions, you can continuously ask for new information (i.e. specific interests and other demographic and preference related data) that is added to an integrated Fan database, and
4. With all the data being captured in the Fan database, you can query and segment the database so that you can target your Fans more specifically (via Facebook or email) with content and offers that they will find more engaging and as a result, just might exceed their expectations.

Interested?  Check out Offerpop and Wishpond.

Are you still trying to program in iFrames or have you gone to a FB Fan Page Marketing App?  How are you exceeding the expectations of your Facebook Fan base?  Join the conversation and let us know!

The post Making Fan Engagement Your Marketing Mantra for 2013 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.