3 low-cost Facebook campaigns that worked

Diogo Veríssimo won the grand prize in the Environmental Media Award’s essay contest.

Case studies showcase successful Facebook marketing

Target audience: Facebook marketers, social media strategists, businesses, brands.

Guest post by Rajat Garg
CEO, SocialAppsHQ

Companies that have an effective social engagement strategy in place, with a manageable timescale and structured implementation plan are able to find their customers, identify who the movers and shakers are, and connect effectively with them.

Our startup, SocialAppsHQ, already has conducted a number of successful social media campaigns on Facebook for our clients. Here’s a summary of the app campaign results for Harley Davidson, Reethi Beach Resort and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Brasilia Harley Davidson: Increase in sales leads

1Brasilia Harley Davidson has creatively used SocialAppsHQ’s Sweepstakes App to generate interest in test driving. This campaign was focused on driving likes and generating sales leads for those who test drive a Harley Davidson. The campaign was run using Facebook ads, content marketing on Harley Davidson Brasilia Facebook page and leveraging SocialAppsHQ’s multi-lingual platform to target their audience.

Campaign results

• Number of entries for free drives: 41 entries
• Increase in number of page Likes: 500
• Time period: two weeks
• Interesting insight: For most social media campaigns, defining clear goals closely associated with the company’s business outcomes are key to success. Harley Davidson Brasilia got 41 leads at a cost that was less expensive than any other marketing channel.

Conservation group gets 6,000 volunteer sign-ups

2The International Union for Conservation of Nature has successfully run an awareness campaign Environmental Media Award, using our Essay Contest tab, that resulted in more than 6,000 registrations of volunteers and 2.15 million impressions. The group is is the world’s oldest and largest global network to protect the environment, a membership union with more than 1,200 government and NGO member organizations and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.

The group’s mission is to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable. To achieve these goals, IUCN turned to social media marketing. It launched an Essay Contest on its Facebook page to increase its reach among young fans, writers, and journalists. For the contest, fans submited an article to win a trip to South Korea this month.

The grand prize winner was Diogo Veríssimo, a conservation biologist from Portugal whose entry, “Greening the crisis: turning trouble into opportunity,” won with 5,352 votes.

Campaign results

With the help of SocialAppsHQ’s Essay Contest App, IUCN was able to run their essay contest campaign successfully and received a large number of entries, votes, and Likes on their Facebook page.

• Number of entries: 160
• Number of votes: 24,037
• Number of unique users who registered: 6,932
• Number of stories created: 24,841
• Number of story views or impressions: 2,152,912 (estimated)
• Growth in fans: 100%
• Interesting insight: Passionate communities can be leveraged successfully to drive awareness about core message as well as developing a bigger following. IUCN got 6,932 registrations, which increased their volunteer database by almost 50% and received over 2.1 million impressions.

‘Win a Dream Vacation’ photo contest attracts 238 entries

3Reethi Beach Resort, an eco-friendly island resort in the Maldives, identified as its major goals to receive increased recognition as a four-star luxury hotel, to build customer relationships and to provide an optimal experience to its visitors. To achieve its goals, Reethi Beach Resort ran a Big Photo Competition in which they awarded prizes worth $7,000. Their fan base grew by 150% during the campaign.

The “Win a Dream Vacation” photo contest was run on its Facebook page using SocialAppsHQ’s Photo Contest App, where fans can enter their favorite holiday photos and get a chance to win a stay for two people at the resort (worth over $7,000).

Campaign results

During the campaign, Reethi Beach Resort got a healthy increase in Likes, new potential customers, and overall ROI.

• Number of entries: 238
• Number of votes: 9,286
• Number of stories created: 8,571
• Number of story views or impressions: 659,967
• Growth in fans: 150%
• Interesting insight: Each story published in the newsfeed, ticker, and timeline received 77 impressions.

Overall insights: Tying Facebook to your business objectives

• No matter what your brand is, you should set up a clear objective: registrations for test drive, increase in volunteer base or just more fans.
• Although we can’t give the details of the costs involved here, cost per lead or Like was less than any other online channel. Sweepstakes, Coupons and Contests (Photo Contest, Essay Contest or any other) are a good way to get leads at a reasonable cost.
• Time based campaigns that offer a relevant incentive for users to participate drive the desired behavior among your target customers – e.g., targeting users who are interested in bikes and cars living in Brasilia results in lower cost per lead (and potential revenue per customer) vs. targeting generic users even though cost per click is lower.

Whether you’ve small or big business, if you can understand, utilize and capitalize on the power of social media, you have the ability to get in front of many thousands of people like never before.

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