Facebook Contest Question

[yagoparamo]

There are some tricks that you can use to increase your Facebook fan interaction. Many people may not like what I have to say, but I am getting targeted fans for pennies on the dollar right now. The idea behind what I have developed for my own personal account is in the realm of blind advertising with soft sales. I have created a blind motorcycle facebook fan page called "all about motorcycles" and I target Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic owners. Why? Because I am vice president of a company who sells motorcycle saddlebag inserts and our flagship product is for H-D HSC owners. We did a lot of testing with our main companies Facebook account with contests and Facebook advertising, but we were just not getting the results we were looking for. In result, I decided to try a blind Facebook page that had more of a community feel to it. All about motorcycles is not branded or shows no affiliation with our company Leather Lid Inserts, in result we now have 920 fans within a matter of a month, we are not bidding per click, we are bidding per thousand impressions and our cost per fan is roughly around $0.12 and we've already made our money back with soft selling our products through the facebook fan page and people actually interact with our posts.

Personally, I believe that Facebook contests are a bit outdated right now and you try to think outside the box and do things that your competitors are not doing. Stand out from the crowd.

Derek,

For what I understand you don't sell or push in FB bikes but accessories for the bikes. So most likely those fans own a bike that can take those accessories so it is interesting for them to get news about what else you guys may build in the future. Bike or car sales on the other hand is a much bigger purchase that also doesn't need affiliation from the client before or after the sale.

I'm just saying... but cars sales is so different from anything else...

 

[Derek Bess]

Derek,

For what I understand you don't sell or push in FB bikes but accessories for the bikes. So most likely those fans own a bike that can take those accessories so it is interesting for them to get news about what else you guys may build in the future. Bike or car sales on the other hand is a much bigger purchase that also doesn't need affiliation from the client before or after the sale.

I'm just saying... but cars sales is so different from anything else...

Thanks for the response Yago, but I believe you missed the point of my post. I was clearly trying to get them to think outside the box in realm of social marketing / advertising. I am very familiar with the car industry as I have worked in the automotive advertising sector for over 7 years. The issues I have with running Facebook contests is that you are not capturing a targeted audience. For instance, lets say I'm running a Ford Facebook page and I have diehard Chevy fans entering my contest because they wanna win an iPad. Do you really think you are going to be able to convert those fans into loyal listeners? Especially when you have the manufacturer "Ford" popping up on their wall? NO! More than likely, they are going to block you from appearing on their wall.

Now just to get you thinking outside the box some more with my method of blind advertising. Lets say you are selling extended warranties through your Ford dealership. Wouldn't it be nice to have a facebook fanpage that is called "All About Fords" and you target Ford owners? I believe that makes more sense then running a contest where you are not grabbing loyal targeted audience. Then from this fan page you are now able to soft sell your extended warranties to FORD owners all over the country.

There is more to running a dealership besides moving metal. There are many other sources of revenue that easily get overlooked such as fixed ops and extended warranties.

 

[yagoparamo]

Thanks for the response Yago, but I believe you missed the point of my post. I was clearly trying to get them to think outside the box in realm of social marketing / advertising. I am very familiar with the car industry as I have worked in the automotive advertising sector for over 7 years. The issues I have with running Facebook contests is that you are not capturing a targeted audience. For instance, lets say I'm running a Ford Facebook page and I have diehard Chevy fans entering my contest because they wanna win an iPad. Do you really think you are going to be able to convert those fans into loyal listeners? Especially when you have the manufacturer "Ford" popping up on their wall? NO! More than likely, they are going to block you from appearing on their wall.

Now just to get you thinking outside the box some more with my method of blind advertising. Lets say you are selling extended warranties through your Ford dealership. Wouldn't it be nice to have a facebook fanpage that is called "All About Fords" and you target Ford owners? I believe that makes more sense then running a contest where you are not grabbing loyal targeted audience. Then from this fan page you are now able to soft sell your extended warranties to FORD owners all over the country.

There is more to running a dealership besides moving metal. There are many other sources of revenue that easily get overlooked such as fixed ops and extended warranties.

I get what you are saying but in your case you sell a unique product, Ford warranties (or anything else Ford a dealer can sell) is not unique therefore people will not follow. You can do that warranty idea with a website where you go once, get the info, and leave. People follow pages because they want continued new info about the product and the dealer doesn't have it.

Once exception though (and maybe even validating your point) would be if a dealer would do something special with some cars like for example ACME Ford Dealer Group off road package where the dealer would do 4x4, lift, etc packages on their F series trucks and continuously add new ones, colors, and ideas.

 

[Derek Bess]

I get what you are saying but in your case you sell a unique product, Ford warranties (or anything else Ford a dealer can sell) is not unique therefore people will not follow. You can do that warranty idea with a website where you go once, get the info, and leave. People follow pages because they want continued new info about the product and the dealer doesn't have it.

Once exception though (and maybe even validating your point) would be if a dealer would do something special with some cars like for example ACME Ford Dealer Group off road package where the dealer would do 4x4, lift, etc packages on their F series trucks and continuously add new ones, colors, and ideas.

Yago,

You are missing the point here. You are gaining targeted fans at a very low cost. How much is a targeted fan worth to your business? Ask yourself that question.

Back to the warranty Facebook page example. People are not following a fan page that is about Ford Warranties. The fan page would be dedicated to ford owners, diehard ford owners. Your fan page says nothing about extended warranties, you build your fan base and get them interacting with your facebook posts and then BAM you hit them with a soft sale for your extended warranties. You have already build up a reputation with your fans, because you are providing them with interactive content. You have gained your fans trust before you post a soft sale item and they will never know you are affiliated with that product.

You think the products we're selling on our blind fan page are unique? You are dead wrong buddy. We have over 10 other companies selling inserts that are the same as ours and we're getting sales on our page. Now we are also providing our loyal audience posts that they can interact with. We do 4 soft sale posts a month and we have generated a positive ROI from these posts, all accounted for with the use of Google Analytics. The same thing can be used for any other type of medium, but you must put the effort into do achieving the goal.

I like to be above average and do thing other people are not willing to do and I really don't like it when people say "that's a bad idea" yet they don't have an idea to rebuttal with.