Today’s savvy brand campaigns use a variety of methods to engage constituents and grow their Facebook Pages. Some resort to bribery, some subterfuge, some through shear hard work. PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay brand, for example, decided to combine a world record attempt with free food giveaways. Snickers made a play on the popular ‘Like’ button and American Express Canada asked fans to ‘dream big’ about travel.
Frito-Lay
The Goals: Page Growth, Engagement, Network Exposure, Brand Loyalty, and Product Purchase
Core Mechanic: Frito-Lay announced on Facebook its intention to vie for the “Most Fans on Facebook in 24 Hours” title in the book of Guinness World Records.
Method: Frio-Lay promoted then implemented a Guinness World Record attempt to gain the most Facebook fans in 24 hours on April 11. After adding 1,571,161 new Likes during that 24-hour period, and thus gaining the world record, the company wanted to thank its fans. Therefore, the company gave away 24,000 bags of chips (retail value $3.99 USD) starting on April 29 to fans who either already Liked the Page, or new fans who wanted to do so, and who also registered on a tab on the Page. This allowed the company to again capitalize on its Guinness record, gaining new fans and also appearing in the streams of 24,000 of its fans.
Impact: The Page added more than 1.5 million Likes in 24 hours, then gave away 24,000 bags of Frito-Lay chips. To think of it another way, Frito-Lay appeared in the news feeds of 1.5 million people in a 24-hour period.
FINAL TAKEAWAY: Bribery works. Hell, I’ll “Like’ your FB page for a free $3 (Retail) bag of chips (even though they cost you 17 cents and the bag is more expensive then the product).
American Express Canada’s ‘Dream Travel’ Contest
Goal: Page Growth, Engagement, Network Exposure, Product Purchase
Core Mechanic: A sweepstakes app that asks users to submit photos of their travels in order to qualify to win a travel prize.
Method: The sweepstakes is Like-gated, and users who want to participate must enter their information on the app, then submit a photo and description talking about their favorite travel moment, finally, they describe their dream travel experience.
Users then get their networks to vote and share the image, and getting the most votes helps users to be eligible to win. Every time you vote, a story pops-up to be published to the stream, comment on the photos, and users can share photos to Twitter or the Facebook stream. The prize is $10,000 towards a user’s “travel dream.”
Impact: Thus far the Votigo-powered sweepstakes has garnered about 500 entries, and the Page is up to 28,300 ‘Likes’. Yet, considering the contest has been going since April 6 and is wrapping up this week, you’d expect for there to be more entries, considering the number of fans of the Page.
FINAL TAKEAWAY: The (Forrester) Technographic profile for the American Express target audience identifies they’re not content creators - they are joiners and followers. Therefore asking users to upload photo content here is a miss - and is reflected by the low level of engagement (especially with a high fan base). The miss here is not the idea, rather the execution.
