Case study // Facebook offer gets huge response.

Facebook offers have been increasing in popularity for businesses this year. As small-to-medium business owners become more tech- and social media-savvy, Facebook functionality also continues to evolve and adapt to these growing needs. Large businesses have also recognised the opportunity to maximise this platform and have been testing various strategies for engagement and ROI response.
  
One hotel in Ireland has decided to test this strategy, and in particular Facebook's recently added functionality of 'offers', and the results themselves have been overwhelming.
  

Roe Park Resort managed to drive over $1 million of revenue in only 24 hours. The hotel's offer which featured on Facebook (pictured below) offered consumers a 1 night stay at a low £42.50. Thanks to the viral nature of this sharing platform and its far reach and ability to penetrate through interconnected networks through both shares and connections, close to 30,000 people have decided to redeem this offer.
  

The next question now is whether the hotel actually has the capacity to host these 30,000 people who have now chosen to stay at the hotel before the offer expiry date of December 31, 2012. Certainly there is a guaranteed stream of activity for the hotel, even if this is at a lowered rate, bringing some sense of security and certainty to what has been a fairly insecure financial climate.

  

    
There is an abundance of Case Studies available, highlighting the potential ROI and social engagement of Facebook native promotions and strategies - several of which have been captured in a previous post on this website. There are a great number of possibilities and many advertisers are taking a "test and see" strategy as we continue to accumulate data and gain insights into this platform and the evolving way in which consumers are engaging with this.
  
The formula for success remains the same; know your brand/product, know your audience, understand the nature of your possible platforms/channels and how these are optimised. At the core of all of these should be a single-minded, insightful and powerful creative idea to drive all of these and bring the excitement, affiliation and loyalty to your business that represents both iconic and profitable brands.

User experience // the influence of social media.

According to an article by Kevin O'Connor, president of User Insight, the social media shift has meant that now "the consumer really is king." In the current landscape, social media has been identified by many businesses as both a great threat and opportunity.
  

Successful and innovative companies are able to get over the initial overwhelming of the size and power of this platform, their inability to control the public messages that are communicated around their brand. Brands must work harder on an ongoing, current and personally-relevant strategy if they hope to receive mindshare of these consumers; the 'earned' media of word-of-mouth that they so desperately desire. And with 92% of consumers trusting earned media (NielsenWire, 2012), developing this relationship is crucial to the success of brands. This can require significant work but clever and committed companies can reap the rewards.
  
"Most of the social media interactions (chatter) are triggered by offline experiences, and these experiences give rise to word of mouth which is carried online." (Heather Albrecht, 2011). The conversations we are participating in have not changed, it is simply the context which has been updated, and the reach multiplied exponentially. Brand experience and customer satisfaction is still at the core and we need to listen qualitatively to our customers, how they interact with brands and what's important to them. Facebook offers an ideal platform for building this relationship in a participatory way.
  
I have discussed the current communication model of participation branding in a previous post, tied to this trend in the current media landscape is the growing importance of Social Influence Marketing (SIM). SIM hinges on the power of sharing and is defined by talented digital training professional Heather Albrecht as:
  

"a technique that employs social media and social influencers to achieve an organisation's marketing and business needs."

  
The infographics below show some of the key statistics driving marketers towards these social platforms and their continuing growth as an advertising environment. With 90% of all purchases being subject to social influence and over 150 million people engaging with Facebook on external websites each month (DigitalBuzz, 2011), it's easy to see why. 74% of CMOs believe they'll tie social media efforts to hard ROI this year, are you one of them?