SEO Marketing

Contests and giveaways are popular ways to increase brand recognition and now with the advent of social media, it can also serve as a way to build a fan base on Facebook. For example, Herbal Essences received thousands of new fans this past summer when it gave away a free bottle of shampoo to the first several thousand respondents,which was very successful for them. Babies’ r Us offered $5 gift cards for everyone who became a fan on January 28th. Incentives such as these give visitors a tangible reason to join and a positive impression of your brand. Consider what you can do for your business using these social media techniques.
Burger King had a creative spin off of this technique. You can receive a coupon for a free burger at their store, but first you must unfriend ten of your friends. “Each time a friend is excommunicated, the application sends a notification to the banished party via Facebook's news feed explaining that the user's love for the unlucky soul is less than his or her zeal for the Whopper.”
“One of my favorite stories about social media involves the Coca Cola Facebook page. The fan page was created by two users who liked Coke. What started as a fan page for fun, turned out to be the largest product fan page on Facebook. Coca Cola, instead of taking over the page and making it their own, Coke rewarded their fans by bringing them to Atlanta and giving them a tour of the Coke facility. The fan page remains theirs, but now they have the blessing and help of Coca Cola.” Why create a fan page from scratch if someone else has done much of the hard work for you? Are there fans of your business or product that already have a fan page for it? Perhaps you could encourage your fans in a similar fashion as Coke did.

The Facebook demographic began as mostly teenagers. The statistics through 2009 show 40% of users were age thirteen to eighteen. Women outnumber men by a slim margin, but the age demographic has changed. The category of age thirty-five to fifty-four has grown significantly and as of 2010 there are over eighteen million users over the age of forty-five. This change in demographic will affect every company fan page as well as the advertising offered. Brands such as Victoria Secret’s Pink fan page that catered to the teenager/college-aged crowd have garnered extremely large, dedicated followings.
According to social marketing experts, “Some brands cannot expect huge followings on Facebook. Brands or product lines targeting the demographic most prominent on Facebook tend to see the quickest growth.” Many political analysts believe that a large part of the reason President Obama won the last campaign was because he marketed himself to the younger generations using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks. Encouraging the young voters to become involved in politics and share their concerns with him led him to be viewed as a modern candidate who was in touch with their needs.
Although contests, giveaways, and other advertising methods can be useful for increasing the size of your Facebook fan page, this type of approach has a quick growth then stagnation period usually. It is much better to provide quality content and grow “organically” for an engaged and active fan base. Word-of-mouth will serve you much better in the long run than a month-long ad campaign. Creating a Facebook fan page isn’t difficult to do, but it can have a huge impact on the success of your company.