Sweep Your Facebook Fans Off Their Feet — Source: Milestone Inc.

One of the challenges that hoteliers (and many other businesses alike) face when promoting their business on Facebook is how to gain fans: and high quality fans for that matter. In a recent social promotion (hosted on Facebook, but also involving many other social channels), Willows Lodge in Woodinville, Washington offered existing and new Facebook fans the exciting opportunity to win a great getaway. The prize consisted of a two night stay at the luxurious hotel, dinner for two at Barking Frog, two spa treatments, a wine tour, high ropes course tickets, and a dinner from The Herbfarm. The sweepstakes was aimed at capturing a greater fan base, engaging their existing fans, and increasing the social buzz around their property

This Facebook sweepstakes consisted of a fangated landing page that required liking the page for entry, a simple name and email address entry form, and a confirmation page that drove a second prize entry process by following @willowslodge on Twitter, tweeting a specific phrase, following the property on Pinterest, and pinning a specific promotion image (seen to the right). The sweepstakes involved:

  • Two week entry period from October 4 – October 18th
  • PPC Budget: $300 total ($280 to display advertising, $20 to promoted posts)

RESULTS: This short sweepstakes saw some very promising results. During the 14 day entry and promotion period, the sweepstakes drove:

  • 1155: new Likes on the Facebook page
  • 48.7%: increase in total fans in this 14 day period versus lifetime prior
  • 261: unique entrants via the Facebook application submitting email address
  • 28: retweets prompted from the confirmation page of the sweepstakes
  • 7: pins on Pinterest of promotion image prompted from the confirmation page of the sweepstakes
  • 33: visits to the sweepstakes application via the tracking URL in the Pinterest share image
  • 521,509: total Facebook impressions during the sweepstakes
  • 238,732: total paid impressions during the sweepstakes
  • 250%: increase in referrals to website from Pinterest (versus 2 weeks prior)

Not only did the Facebook page see a significant growth in new likes during the entry period, but the sweepstakes also had several added perks, including the engagement of a very socially savvy winner; the winner of this great prize tweeted, blogged, and posted her way through the weekend! Willows Lodge was able to generate a great deal of social buzz around their brand while engaging their audience with the opportunity to win.

For more information on running a social media sweepstakes, or any of the many other social media marketing services that Milestone Internet Marketing offers, visit our website describing our social media services.

About Milestone Inc

Milestone drives online discovery and customer acquisition with our digital presence platform and performance marketing services. Over 2,000 companies in Hospitality, Retail, Financial Services and Automotive industries use Milestone to drive online growth. Our customers include global brands in hospitality, banking, retail, automotive, including Marriott, US Bank, One Nevada Credit Union, VMWare, Nissan, Motel6, Preferred Hotels, Sun Outdoors, mid-market companies, and SMBs.

Milestone platform includes Website CMS, Schema Manager, Local listings, Reviews management, FAQ Manager, and Analytics. In addition, Milestone offers Performance Marketing Services - Content, Design, SEO, Paid Marketing, and Analytics to our clients. Annually, over 300 million visitors use websites developed on Milestone CMS, 540M consumers click on content powered by Milestone Schemas, and 3.7B consumers search for businesses powered by Milestone Local. Milestone platform is amongst the highest-rated Martech platforms with awards and recognition from Forrester, G2, Adrian Awards, US Search Awards, Search Engine Land, CMS Wire and many more organizations.

Teresa Villaruz
Sr. Marketing Manager
408-200-6871
Milestone Inc.

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