The value of sweepstakes to drive fans
That much is true. And sometimes lots of them.
But are Sweepstakes a good way to acquire fans? High profile examples might make us think a bit harder about how best to use prize draws.
Let’s consider the Chase Freedom facebook page, and a recently ended sweepstake that offered two levels of prizes. Firstly, 504 prizes of $500 each, issued through a Visa Pre Paid Card, to one winner every hour for 21 days. The prize cost of this element then is $252,000. But that is dwarfed by the Grand Prize: One lucky winner will be selected at random to $1 million.
Wow.
Total prize fund for this campaign then being $1,252,000.
The page itself, on the 28th October 2011, just a few days after the grand prize closing date, stands at 474,203 fans, or Likes. That’s approximately $2.64 per fan, even if every one of those fans was generated directly by virtue of the prize draw, based only on the cost of the prizes, and before any related marketing costs or at least the costs of planning and designing the competition have been taken into account.
Cost per fan, at least $2.64.
If there was little or no marketing spend, then it would be safe to assume most of the Fans were existing customers that heard about it through their regular notices from the bank. So the increased value to the bank will be: some slightly more engaged existing customers? Perhaps three weeks of incremental positive sentiment amongst customers and the small number of friends they may have affected?
Alternatively, if there was in any way substantial marketing promotion of the sweepstake, and let’s face it if you’re giving away $1m you may as well tell the world about it, then the actual cost per Fan will be considerably higher than $2.64. What’s more the likelihood is you have a lot of “Fans” that are specifically motivated by prize draws, and that could get expensive to maintain their interest in you brand. They are likely to be transient, unlikley to listen to your messages other than new giveaway or prize draw opportunities, and are probably more intent in finding the next promotion than they are applying for your credit card.
So are prize draws particularly effective ways of driving new fans? Perhaps they are better used as “thank-you”s to your existing customers and fans, and by virtue of that the improved sentiment and loyalty may be a valuable property to build. But it is probably not an effective way to acquire new “fans” – who of course are still some way from being customers – and at a minimum of $2.64 and quite easily double that, it is not even a particularly cost-effective way to generate leads.
Zuckerberg does not ‘Like’ Google+
It would seem that despite having almost 10% of all users on Google+ adding him to their Circles, one is not amused. Or is that +1 is not amused?
Not a single Post to say “Hello world”, or something equally profound. Nothing.
Rubbish.
No posts, no update, nothing.
User numbers in SocialMediocrity rising. FAST.
Following the revelation published yesterday that Facebook user numbers are falling, in some of their originally strong-growth and key territories, we can today reveal that user numbers have DOUBLED on socialmediocrity.com in just a couple of days.
At this rate of growth, it will surpass MySpace user numbers in about 174 days. Reports of hurried preparation of an 8-figure IPO in the near future are “wide of the mark” according to a socialmediocrity.com spokesperson, despite increasing demand for anything “social”.
Facebook User numbers falling
As covered in BusinessInsider earlier today, the rise and rise of Facebook user numbers appears to have hit the rails.
In fact, evidence has begun to emerge that many of the key, and early, markets are falling in user numbers. According to Inside Facebook’s data service, the US has lost 6 million users, Canada 1.5 million – approximately 4% and 8% respectively.
Daily user numbers from Google also support that evidence, showing thatdaily user have been falling for several weeks now, cerainly in the US, and the UK, shown.
Daily Facebook users in US falling
UK Facebook users also falling
Better news still exists in other territories, and there is of course a lot more growth to come from the less mature markets. Turkey, for example, has always stood out as an over-adopting nation almost, and yet growth continues there
Growing base in Turkey
Does any of this impact Facebook’s strategic direction? The pressure to monetise existing audiences may grow, especially as FB move inevitably towards an IPO, and it won’t help valuations if falling mature markets become the norm.
Or will falling “western” users increase the pressure to expand in the more nascent markets? And presumably seek to retain and monetise aggressively. The Facebook user experience, which has been exceptional to date bar the occassional privacy indiscretions, could suffer with the combined pressures of growth and revenue.
Real-time targeting
Facebook’s real-time targeting capability is on full display in the Recommended Pages box todayPosting details of a couple of pages recommended to me this morning, interestingly the recommendations changed to be, and in fairness very openly (“related to your post”), based on that update.
To be fair, I had no idea Park Ji Sung was a Tory. Who would have thought?
Facebook Photos Hacked and oh-ned
Some terribly clever McCann Erickson Israel people wanted to show the world of prospective new talent how good their imagination was, so they came up with what has been described as a “hack” to Facebook Photos.
I only hope they’re not hopin
g to attract any new talent with a pedantic eye for detail, or anything so silly. Even this hawkish amateur can spot that possibly the second most important aspect of any snakes & ladders board appears to be missing. That’s right. The numbers.
Oh, but hang on. They’re not missing entirely. You see, they have actually included them, it’s just that they failed to understand the medium they were working with and executed the idea in a laissez-faire kind of way so that they don’t actually show up when the punch line is delivered (in the photo album view) . Presumably they wouldn’t want a client to think that’s how they manage their projects either.
The concept appears to be based on a snakes & ladders board, and the “real-world” version (that’s real-world in facebook) of it can be seen here (which they may at some stage update to improve the execution)
If you do got to the real version you’ll be able to see that the individual picture views include the numbers but that the crop in the summary level kind of cuts them out.
Nice idea though. I might nick it and do it properly.
(Tip to the designers – just move the numbers that you photo-shopped into each image up a bit, and to the right a bit)
What of the UK Government Spending Challenge?
Launched in something of a fanfare (though admittedly it took this scathing, anonymous blogger a few days to have come across it originally), the UK Government’s much applauded efforts to engage the public in spending cuts has, essentially, faltered despite self-congratulatory release of (super-cool) video conference chats with the King of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, proudly released here. And summarized here:
DC: Basically, we’ve got a huge problem here…. thank you for “engaging”
MZ: We’re really delighted to be in this partnership with you guys….to help harness the ideas facebook users have to help the UK public save money…..it’s a really innovative thing you guys are doing…to try to create more social change.
DC: Thanks for doing this…..a lot of people say: people are not really interested in how to make government cost less, not really interested in politics….because it’s always been up to now top-down, take it or leave it…….there’s an enormous civic spirit in this country where people want to take control….people really want to take part. But thanks Mark, because we couldn’t have done it without you, and getting this public engagement for free is a good start.
MZ: Glad to help
DC: Well thanks. This web conference thing is great, is it new? And great to see you the other day. Next time you’re in town, drop by
Allow me to highlight some of those phrases and ideas: “enormous civil spirit” exists in the UK; engaging for free on Facebook is going to help plug the deficit; the UK Prime Minister has never before used web conferencing.
Launched on the 9th July, the Spending Challenge website was designed to encourage the public to contribute their ideas as to how and where our newly elected, more in-touch Government could, or should, consider cuts in public spending. Harnessing the power of that “enormous civil spirit”, you might say. Well that’s not quite how it worked out.
The unelected government that the UK public find themselves with clearly promised much ahead of the election which they simply had no idea about how they would deliver against it. Which means any commitments they gave as far as reducing the debt were concerned prior to the election were at best disingenuous. In short, they lied to us all to buy a few votes. I will resist the urge to rant more about the Lib Dem u-turn, trading policy and manifesto pledges for ministerial cars.
Perhaps more unforgivably (as it required no special access to the public accounts), it also demonstrates just how out of touch even this newly installed government actually are. The reason for the process failing is that is became subjected to a level of abuse that they simply had not prepared for, and presumably therefore had not anticipated. It does not take a Bullingdon graduate, let alone a Cabinet full of them (here and here), to work out that given the opportunity, the public will respond with profanity, attack the unelected government themselves, or indeed that they would vent their frustrations at social minorities first, and in spite of the many thousands of constructive ideas offered, the press would highlight the few that were deemed offensive.
So following a number of offensive suggestions that attacked, specifically those with disabilities, and having failed to have removed the offending items even after they had been highlighted, what does the government do? Does it put in place appropriate monitoring and moderation processes to ensure that items like that are picked up, thereby ensuring that they continue to embrace the “enormous civil spirit” that exists amongst the UK public as they shoul dhave done in the first place? Do they continue to let the public review each others ideas, refining them with comments and suggestions and rating them? Do they shoot the people that advised them, built the website and failed to put in place the appropriate controls? Do they heck.
Instead, they effectively pull up the drawbridge. You can keep sending those ideas, kids, but the Government and its’ cronies will be the sole adjudicators from now on. So there. We’ll tell you what we’ve decided in a few weeks time.
It’s just like the good old days, when politicians got on with the jobs they were elected to do, and we got on with ours. Apart from the allegedly “free” charade of public engagement. FOI request submitted for more details.
As for web conferencing. Yes, Prime Minister, it is indeed very good. You should try it without a script next time. Like a normal person would. And try speaking to your own people, and not the next-best-thing to Obama, just because he won’t come out to play any more.
McEleny on Soci……oh I can’t be bothered
Interesting comment from the NMA’s feature writer on Social yesterday, Charlotte McEleny.
In response to the IAB UK SMC’s I.A.B. framework for measuring social, it seems the feedback they were expecting was, as McEleny describes it, “mixed”. She goes on to completely fail to express any substantial opinion of her own, but rather concentrates on criticising the very people participating in the social space (albeit in a scathingly anonymous way) by blogging their own opinion, and in their own way trying to agitate the discussion to a more meaningful and ultimately valuable end.
The only solution proffered by our erstwhile journo? A call to ending criticism is the answer, to end the #FAIL culture, rather than acknowledge the failings and shortcomings of the industry and demand better quality of output and leadership. What has the world come to when ineffective trade bodies are supported by lazy journalism of this kind?
Given the subject matter, it strikes me as ironic that any negativity expressed in these social environments itself becomes the focus of criticism, almost as if to not support the views of the party (the IAB UK) is not to be tolerated. Somehow the blogging proletariat have nothing useful to say, or that whatever they do say should only be judged through the lens of the governing party’s own opinion. Is this really the writing we have come to expect from NMA?
I find it at best disappointing and honestly couldn’t think of a better way to demonstrate, as a journalist, that you really have failed to grasp the very concept of the subject you are meant to be a leading commentator on.
The mixed feedback is surely something to be welcomed. Goodness knows, as all practitioners will understand, to get any substantial, though out, considered consumer feedback is an achievement in its’ own right. Absolutely it should not be casually and aggressively dismissed, and I sincerely hope that the IAB UK SMC had their listening strategy in place and will have collected all of this feedback, in all it’s forms, to help inform future development of the I.A.B. framework, and are not relying on feedback from the fully paid-up member base.
And just to be clear, rather than intending to attack any one journalist, this is aimed at the wider journalistic community who all too often provide ill-considered opinion on a subject they often know little about, yet still demand to be revered.
I for one refuse to be dragged down to the lowest common denominator in the Social space. As outlined in my own scathing and anonymous attack on the IAB UK SMC’s I.A.B. framework, and my opinion remains firm, “Social” is far more than advertising, far more than just a concern for digital marketers, and to be taken seriously we must, as an industry, resist the temptation to flirt with “standardisation” of metrics which would imply to some degree a standardisation of desired outcome. If we point our guns at that particular enemy, then we will end up with an industry incapable of innovation, one that turns out mediocre work at best, and more often and more likely, socially neutral or damaging results for brands.
