This is a guest blog post by Kathy Hipple of Noosphere Marketing
Sada Shop increased its fan base by over 600% in just two months by launching a clever quiz and a fun contest and adding sponsored ads to amplify its fans’ response. Here’s how we did it:
- Devise an engaging contest or quiz idea to engage your prospective fans.
- Find an app that works (we chose Wildfire)
- Support your contest or quiz with Facebook and Search ads
- Keep posting engaging content on your page to support the quiz or contest
- Use sponsored stories to reach your fans’ friends — leverage the real power of social media
- Use sponsored posts to amplify news of the contest or quiz and anything topical that builds on the growing fan base
Sada Shop, a Saudi-based online concept shop, which sells fabulous design products, Sadashop.com, had just launched at the time of the contest. Of course, the ultimate goal has been to increase organic traffic to the site – check out these results.
We at Noosphere Marketing helped Sada Shop launch a True You Personality Quiz and the Worst Gift Ever Contest (for a chance to win the Best Gift Ever). We targeted people throughout the Middle East who would appreciate Sada Shop’s unique designs that are in stock for fast, local shipping. (They also ship worldwide.)
We used a Wildfire app to launch both the quiz and the contest. We drove traffic to the Facebook page through Google and Facebook ads.
The True You Personality Quiz determined whether each respondent was a Secret Rebel, a Jetsetter, a Zen Goddess, a Good Girl, or a Fashionista. (Fashionista was the winner, if you must know. Jetsetter, and Secret Rebels, were close runners-up.)
Our primary goal for the Quiz, which ran for one month, was to drive awareness of Sada Shop and increase likes. We increased likes from 160 to 1600 in four weeks, and during one week of the contest, Sada Shop was #3 on SocialWatchList.com in Facebook fan page growth for the Middle East and North Africa; edging out many large brands.
We also built an email list, as most respondents gave their email addresses in case they won a prize. Some questions were asked about ideal gifts, the best ways to spend time, favorite fashion items, and dreamy travel spots. Talk about market research for the Sada Shop team, who want to offer their customers compelling products that meet their secret fantasies.
Throughout the Quiz and Contests, Sada Shop kept posting regularly, about awesome fashion and eco-friendly design throughout the world. They are passionate about great design and wanted their wall to reflect this. You can see for yourself.
Since the Quiz was such a success – 1500+ entries in a month, an 18% entry rate. – we wanted to keep the fan growth momentum and engagement with the Sada Shop fan page. We then launched another contest, again using Wildfire App. We asked participants to describe their Worst Gift Ever and to describe what they would consider an ideal gift. Again, we’re primarily trying to build on the existing fan base, add to the email list, and gain crucial market research about “ideal gifts” that would make up for the Worst Gifts.
Throughout the two months, we ran the quiz and contest, we wanted to build on Sada Shop’s existing fan base. In particular, we wanted to reach new fans, ideally through the friends of existing fans, to amplify the existing fan base. To do this, we ran Sponsored Stories ads.
Sponsored Stories ads ensure that Sada Shop would appear in the Friends of our existing Fans’ newsfeeds, saying, “(THIS FAN) likes Sada Shop.” As social media research suggests, Friends of Friends are 3-4 times more likely to like a page if one of their friends already likes the page.
In particular, we were really focused on increasing the number of People Talking About Us (PTAs) People Talking About Us have increased, as you can see. This is super important because it means your ads are reaching the friends of your fans and it increases your Edge Rank. A high Edge Rank helps your ads appear in the newsfeeds of your fans’ friends:
We also added a created Page Post Ad, featuring a recent post about Madonna, who was wearing a Leigh & Luca scarf, which Sada Shop carries. We wanted to target people in the region who already like Madonna and are interested in Fashion. We thought this might be a great way to introduce them to Sada Shop, in case they missed the original post. Madonna had just performed at the Super Bowl, and the post had been popular on the page, and we wanted to build on that popularity.
Since Sada Shop posts regularly – great fashion design and eco-friendly designs — we have incorporated Sponsored Stories for almost all their posts. We can also build on what others are writing about them. Recently, a blogger wrote about Sada Shop and we wanted to amplify the impact of the blog post. See our example below:
We also were able to promote Valentine’s Day, by running a Sponsored Story ad about a Sada Shop pillow:
When I reached out to Dennis Yu of Content Factory, for his advice, he was super-helpful. His session at #OMS2012 “How To Plan, Execute, and Measure Like the Pros”, and his one-on-one help afterward really helped increase fans and drive organic traffic to one of Noosphere Marketing’s clients in the Middle East. Thank you, Dennis and Content Factory, for the great tips!
Noosphere Marketing helps companies — especially entrepreneurs, e-commerce, and women-owned businesses –with their online marketing. We use a thoughtful combination of savvy traditional marketing expertise and sassy online expertise. Its co-founder, Kathy Hipple, especially enjoys helping entrepreneurs realize their vision.
