March 29, 2024

Blogger insights this week: Do social media marketing stunts work?

JGO Digital Marketing Highlights

What makes a social media marketing campaign awesome?

It depends on who you ask, but most answers fall into two camps.

One camp is inclined to evaluate the creative way it uses social media to build brand and PR buzz. The other is focused on how the campaign grows customers and sales.

One thing is for sure, between the Super Bowl, the Olympics and Valentine’s Day, marketers have had a lot of social media marketing opportunities. And a lot of opportunities to weigh in on what is awesome and what is meh.

This week I found two interesting posts, one from both camps. I’m putting them in the spotlight and asking you, “Do social media marketing stunts work?” I welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

Spotlight: The making of great social media marketing

Pizza brands are making social media fun again via Copypress

This post takes a look at two brands’ creative use of social media campaigns. One, Pizza Hut, has partnered with OKCupid to piggyback with Valentine’s Day. Pizza Hut created an account on OKCupid for a contest to find “The One” special fan. The winner of Pizza Hut’s undying love will get free pizza for life. But the winner must prove his/her love socially.

Players (see what I did there?) must submit a video proposal on Vine or Instagram with the hashtag #CommitToGreatness. The most creative proposal wins.

The promotion wins praise for its clever tie-in of Valentine’s, online dating and user-generated video to promote its brand.

Check out the full post to find out more about this and one other high profile social campaign.

That Esurance Super Bowl stunt and finding the real value of social media via Mack Collier

Hold on, writes Mack Collier in this post, clever doesn’t necessarily translate into sales success. He examines the hailed (by some) social media promo by Esurance.

Esurance bought the first commercial following the Super Bowl, saving $1.5 million in its ad budget. The windfall was used as a jackpot drawing for one lucky winner who tweeted the hashtag #EsuranceSave30 within 36 hours of the ad being aired. The promotion created a tidal wave of activity in the form of entries, video views, website traffic and social media buzz.

Based on that, the stunt was lauded as a huge success. Mack warns against a rush to judgment.

Will the traffic create new customer relationships and sales conversions? That remains to be seen. And there’s reason to be skeptical. Turns out Esurance already lost 15% of new followers gained from the stunt.

Read more of Mack’s thoughts on this topic here.

Other blogger highlights from the Web

Social Media Marketing

Why graphics bring greater engagement to fan pages via Social Fresh

Why Lays wants to quit social media and hates America via PR Newser

How a small family business pulled off one of the greatest successes in YouTube history via {grow}

Content Marketing

How to craft tweetable quotes that make your content spread like wildfire via Boost Blog Traffic

Create more effective content marketing with the ‘active reading technique’ via CMI

How to make content the voice of strategy via Duct Tape Marketing

Why the key to content marketing is becoming a digital dandelion via Convince & Convert

Content marketers could become their own worst enemy via Moz

Response Marketing

Email is the new email via Marketingland

How trust signals can double your conversions via Econsultancy

The C.U.R.V.E. method for engaging email subject lines via Eloqua

Why people don’t trust your landing page testimonials via Unbounce

Is this the future of your email marketing campaigns? via Crazy Egg

Branding

Can’t afford a website? Build your brand with social media [case study] via State of Digital

Caring is sharing – how to get your brand advocates to care via Feldman Creative

A relationship marketing tale: “Love and the Paranoid Marketer” via GO Digital

Newswire

Digital Marketing Weekly via JGO Digital

Top news stories of the week: LinkedIn pulls the plug on Intro app after four months; Klout adds content-sharing platform to woo users to its site; Brands chose Twitter over Facebook for real-time Super Bowl marketing; Plus more news and information.

Visual Marketing

social-media-marketing-stunts

Credit: tomfishburne.com

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About Oliver D. Webb

Oliver D. Webb is a beat reporter for GO Digital. A connoisseur of fine content, he surfs the interwebz for the best of marketing analysis, commentary and practice tips. Webb Sightings is his collection of content marketing, social media, branding, direct response and integrated marketing content for the discerning digital marketer. Read it here every week. Have a submission worthy of Oliver’s scrutiny? Send him a note on the contact page.

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