Interactive Promotions + Blogs = A Winning Combination
So, what we now have is a great opportunity to combine the benefits of interactive promotions with social media into what I’m calling Social Sweeps. Blogs are powerful socializing tools that can connect people from all over the world and help to build relationships. This is an extremely strong benefit and by integrating a promotion into a blog it provides that added value along with the excitement of a chance to win. Bloggers tend to like giveaways and contests and they also like being asked to evaluate products that are relevant to their readers. So we are now witnessing marketers approaching bloggers and offering to give them products to try as well as to use as a prize in their own giveaway. This appears to be a growing activity and a win-win situation for all:
- The marketers can get some very targeted awareness and publicity
- The bloggers can attract more people to their blog
- The readers have a chance to win something that’s very relevant to them.
Blog outreach programs are a popular method for marketers to connect with bloggers and they’re starting to provide some level of success. These programs can however be a time-consuming process and therefore should not be thought of as a one-time event, but more as a way for a brand to build long lasting relationships. Having a core group of influencers can pay off big in the long run for both the brand as well as for the blogger.
If considering executing a blog outreach program you need to keep in mind that contacting bloggers is quite different than just sending out a PR release as you would with traditional media. With a blogger you generally have a window into her personal life so mass emailing should not be used and instead every email should be personalized. Here are a few participation options that you could offer a blogger in a Social Sweeps outreach program:
- Invite them to write a review on your product/service and publish it to their blog
- Offer to send them product or give them access to your service and ask them if they would then share their experience with their readers (hopefully it will be a positive experience)
- Give them extra product and suggest that they conduct their own sweepstakes giveaway on their blog. Provide some direction on how to best execute this.
- Offer an interview with a spokesperson from your company so that they could publish quotes on their blog
- Invite them to inform their readers about the national promotion that you are launching and offer to prove a hyper-linked logo or widget that will direct their readers directly to your company’s/brand’s website or promotional micro-site.
Additional options may also include:
~Supplying the bloggers with a special promotional code that they could share with their readers that would provide a “blogger discount” towards the purchase of your product or service for a limited time.
~Invite a few bloggers to be on a panel of judges for a national user-generated contest that you are conducting.
Interactive promotions are highly measurable and most of the time can be very effective when integrated with the right incentive, however they certainly won’t achieve your defined objectives if proper awareness of the promotion is not created. While we realize that brand advertisers still require volume and scale, utilizing a blog outreach program as a way to get the word out about a new interactive promotion may be a much more effective “buy” than online advertising. This Social Sweeps strategy may in fact be an ideal way in 2008 to reach those niche parts of the “Long Tail”.
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