The cliche is true; sometimes a image really is worth a thousand words. If you've been contemplating developing a social media marketing strategy for your business, this graphic I found on Flickr may be a good reference. Of course, we here at Firebelly are always ready to help you too!
Have a great weekend everybody!
[Image: Intersection Consulting]
Chad Richards is the Social Program Manager at Firebelly Marketing. Find him on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
Firebelly recently helped Qdoba of Central Indiana develop and launch the Cinco de Mayo Sweepstakes on Facebook. The sweepstakes, with a prize of a catered party for the winner and up to 19 of his or her friends, is run via a page seamlessly built into a custom tab on the Qdoba Central Indiana Facebook Page.
Qdoba’s Cinco de Mayo Sweepstakes ends Wednesday, May 5th; you still have a chance to enter to win.
Chad Richards is the Social Program Manager at Firebelly Marketing. Find him on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenge
Firebelly was engaged to help Air-Tan, an Indianapolis custom spray tanning salon, generate awareness of their services online and increase their Facebook fanbase.
Approach
Firebelly created the Sizzling Summer Sweepstakes – with a grand prize of free spray tans for the Summer – and launched it on the Air-Tan Facebook Page. The entry form informed people that they needed to “Like” Air-Tan’s Facebook Page in order to be eligible to win.
To promote the sweepstakes, notifications were sent to Air-Tan’s email list and signs and flyers were placed in the salon. Firebelly also identified people tweeting about tanning within a 30 mile radius of Indianapolis so that Air-Tan could reach out to them via Twitter with information about the contest.
Results
In four weeks, views of the Air-Tan Facebook Page increased dramatically and their fan numbers increased by 41%.
I’ll be joining all my fellow apartment nerds (and Mark Juleen) this week at the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference 2010. It’s only been a month since the Optimization Summit in Dallas, yet I’m starting to suffer from a little withdrawal. After all, the online social connection keeps me “fixed” but I need real, live dialog with people in this space. If you’re thinking of attending but haven’t made up your mind, use the discount code “aim2010duncan” and that will get you a $50 discount. Hey every bit helps!
So here’s what I’m excited about session vise. I’ll be tweeting a few times so there should be some live coverage as well. Tweet me with questions!
Who Owns the Relationship with the Searching Consumer?
Danny Sullivan, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land
Danny Sullivan is one of the world’s top authorities on search engines. He’s going to offer insights into evolving consumer search behavior, strategies and tactics small businesses use to leverage the search giants, and media strategies for making your company visible to a search engine. He’s also going to discuss the presentation of content and how the increasingly rich presentation of a business’s data such as reviews and operating hours on a Search Engine Results Page will change the balance of power with businesses and advertising partners. Apartment owners and sponsors alike will want the benefit of Danny’s product knowledge and his journalist’s instincts for the next big story in how businesses get found on the web.
How to Stop Worrying and Start Loving Online Reviews
Mark Juleen, Vice President of Marketing, J.C. Hart Company; Kevin Thompson, Vice President of Marketing, AvalonBay; Misty Browning, National Marketing Manager at AMLI Residential; Steve Gilbert, Sr. Marketing & Internet Advertising Associate, Mission Residential
Perhaps one of the most relevant subjects at the conference, and featuring an all star panel. This panel is sure to deliver a punch regarding monitoring the social space, strategies for engaging with positive and negative commentary, and how to measure this. We don’t have the luxury of time. Monitoring and responding are critical to building a smart, responsive brand online.
Multifamily Internet Strategies
Steve Taraborelli, Vice President, UDR Inc., and Kevin Thompson, Vice President of Marketing, AvalonBay Communities
Steve Taraborelli, Vice President of Marketing at UDR will present “UDR’s Internet & Mobile Forecast Trends for 2010 & Beyond”. While I don’t believe that 2010 will be the year for mobile, I still think this will be a fascinating session. They’ll also underline the importance of social and search optimization. Kevin Thompson will challenge attendees to create their own strategic framework and present “”Custer, Coke, and Conan: Lessons in how to (and not) build a strategy.”
Mobile, Local and Real-Time Search
Greg Sterling, Co-Founder and Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence
World-class mobile analyst Greg Sterling will have details, facts and trends about the escalating use of mobile search, location-based search and real-time search done at the point of sale. Tremendous amounts of money and energy are chasing the business of people that use their phones to research and transact their sales. Smart apartment marketers large (Village Green) and small (J.C Hart) have been using mobile marketing to feed the growing percentage of smart phone users and, um, regular phone users who are now searching for an apartment with their mobile device. Whether its google reviews, maps, ratings, reviews, FourSquare, games and more, mobile is awakening big time in the US. I’m keen to see some predictions and some numbers here.
What’s Google Up to, and How Does it Affect the Rest of Us?
Interview with Sam Sebastian, Director of Local and B2B Markets, Google
While in my opinion, Facebook is going to change the way we interact and search online, Google is still the primary search engine for most people. An estimated 70-75% of online apartment searches start at the Google search box. Yet most apartment giants still struggle with finding the utility in Google and prefer to let their agencies and listing services have the relationship with them. In an interview with Sam Sebastian, Director of Local and B2B Markets we’ll discuss where the search giant is going in real estate, where the opportunities are and provide an opportunity for Sam to hear directly from the audience and answer questions and comments.
Marketing Initiatives That Didn’t Work
Kari Warren, Director of Marketing, AvalonBay; Jules Epstein, President, Primary Design; Lisa Trosien, President, ApartmentExpert.com
Anytime Lisa Trosien is in the house, I’m there. These experts are going to talk about things that didn’t go well, why they didn’t, and lessons learned.
Student Housing Marketing Insights and Best Practices
Paras Bhakta, Managing Principal, STUHO; Casey Van Zandt, Vice President Leasing & Marketing, Campus Advantage
Today’s student is tomorrow’s renter. Yet few of us understand how differently students expect to be reached online, and how they want to transact. These are experts, who are immersed in student housing, presenting details about how they communicate, why Gen Y chooses to reach out and make a connection, and what turns them off completely and tells them that a community isn’t their kind of place.
Duncan Alney is the President of Firebelly Marketing.
The big news dominating blog and news headlines this week came from Facebook’s f8 conference which announced the Open Graph and Social Plugins (among other exciting things). We’ve had several calls and emails from clients asking how these new changes will affect their existing social marketing efforts. One even asked if I’d use my usual weekly blog roundup to focus on f8. Below are 25 stories from this week about f8 and Facebook’s new features.
Building the Social Web Together by Mark Zuckerberg
The Next Evolution of Facebook Platform by Bret Taylor
How Facebook won the web by Pete Cashmore
Facebook Takes on the World by Lance Ulanoff
What Facebook’s New Platform Means for your Business By Mia Dand
Facebook: The Entire Web Will Be Social by Liz Gannes
I Think Facebook Just Seized Control Of The Internet by MG Siegler
Facebook Open Graph: What it Means for Privacy by Christina Warren
Microsoft Taps Into Facebook’s Open Graph To Launch Docs.com by Erick Schonfeld
Facebook’s ambition by Robert Scoble
Is the New Facebook a Deal With the Devil? by Marshall Kirkpatrick
Adding the Facebook Like Button To Your Site by John Jantsch
What you should know about Facebook’s changes by John Sutter
Facebook to let members share info on Web faves by Jon Swartz
Facebook: Privacy Enemy Number One? by Dan Costa
My Facebook Problem – And Yours by Jeff Jarvis
Ignore Facebook Open Graph at your peril – this is Web 3.0 by Martin Bryant
Facebook Seeks To Build The Semantic Search Engine by Nick O’Neill
With the Open Graph Protocol, Any URL Can Be Treated Just Like a Facebook Page by Justin Smith
A Marketer’s Guide to Facebook’s New Social Plugins by Kipp Bodnar
How Facebook Could Organize The Internet by Niraj Chokshi
What Facebook’s latest means for the Web by Caroline McCarthy
Facebook expands presence on other Web sites by Benny Evangelista
How Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook plan to conquer the rest of the world by Chris Obrien
Has Facebook won the web war against Google? by Jennifer Leggio
Have a great weekend everyone!
Chad Richards is the Social Program Manager at Firebelly Marketing. Find him on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
Firebelly recently helped Air-Tan, an Indianapolis custom spray tanning salon that provides a safe alternative to tanning beds, launch the Sizzling Summer Sweepstakes on Facebook. The sweepstakes, with a prize of “free spray tans for the Summer” is run via a page seamlessly built into a custom tab on the Air-Tan Facebook Page.
Air-Tan’s Sizzling Summer Sweepstakes ends Monday, April 26th so you still have a chance to enter to win.
