On Facebook it’s not uncommon to see a company to say “Share/like this post to enter this sweepstakes, a winner will be chosen on Friday!”

They bore the hell out of me, as a consumer.

I either never trusted that my name was entered, thought that my chances were so slim it might not be worth it, or that the incentive to associate myself with that post just wasn’t big enough.

They sometimes seem like spam.

From the business’ perspective, these contests and giveaways are supposed to be driving whatever goal they want to achieve. Most times I’m confused as to what the business is trying to achieve, other than fishing for ‘likes’.

Fishing for likes doesn’t turn into money (at least not directly).

They might serve your business well, but I hate seeing that kind of engagement on my social networks. So do consumers.

Businesses using Facebook to try these tactics get “unliked” by me, or at least I trim down on the amount of updates I can see from them.

You know what doesn’t bother me?

When my friends send me a video of them on YouTube. I like seeing my friends content they create, and I probably trust their taste enough to watch. The power of video is undeniable, for marketing purposes.

Here is a pretty awesome video of a kid teaching us how to use a pogo stick.

Well, it turns out to be a extremely effective form of advertising for the pogo stick manufacturer. Word of mouth advertising is extremely powerful for brands.

Videos like this are all over YouTube. Just go search for “How to …” and if there are happy enough consumers, chances are there will be videos being uploaded and watched.

Can you use these concepts to engage with your consumers, and make money?

I think so.

As a business owner, a social media manager, an entrepreneur, or anyone who wants to grow their social media presence for their business- you just need to follow a very simple formula.

We want to not feel like spam, while utilizing word of mouth advertising.

Let’s allow your customers to do the talking, and the advertising.

 

1. Have proper expectations and goals

Every good marketing campaign has a clearly defined set of goals.

You should think about the aspect of your business, specifically identifying what metric you want to move.

For example, a good goal for a marketing campaign could be this:

I want to add 1,000 new e-mail subscribers to our e-mail list

But it can get better.. can’t it? Remember the name of this post is “How to tap directly into your sales funnel, while engaging on social media”. And yes, subscribers are nice, but it’s not going to affect our sales funnel directly.

So, let’s try to realign our goals so it’s related to our sales funnel. Let’s use an example

I want to run a campaign that generates $2,000 over a weekend.

Interesting. Now we’ve clearly set expectations that are directly tied to our sales funnel, and it even has a specific time-span.

Have an idea of how much product you need to sell to obtain that goal, and make sure it’s realistic.

 

2. Give them a good reason to engage

If you tell me to do something, or ask me to do something for you, it better be worth my time. And I better really like you.

I most likely don’t want to share your business status on my own wall. I look like a spam-robot.

Don’t waste your consumers time. You have to give them something they want.

The best way to do this is by playing it safe: give them something you know they love. 

Do you sell a product? Do your consumers love it? Then make your existing customers an offer they can’t refuse. Give them 2 copies of your product, for something in return.

Let’s say you are a restaurant owner. Your customers love your food, and you know it. They rant and rave about the quality of the food and service all over social media, and on review sites.

Offer your most popular dish for free on 2 separate occasions, to customers who make you a good 30 second video and upload it to YouTube.

If the video is entertaining enough, or the customer is influential, That video could end up being seen by a lot people over-time. It’s well worth the 2 free plates of food!

 

3. Make that reason tie into your goals

Now, if we combine all three of these ideas into a single campaign, we have something special.

If we offer up a deal to our consumers, one that is so enticing they can’t say no, and we craft it right.. Something magic happens.

The incentive must tie back to your original goals, otherwise it’s not going to hit your own expectations.

So let’s stick with this restaurant example, and tie these three together:

“If you make us a 30 second video about how much you love our food, you + three guests eat for 50% this weekend!”

Now, to those customers who love your food, and were thinking about eating out this weekend, this might be a win-win for them. Thats great! It’s also a win-win for you because it’s generating revenue.

You get a great video to use for content, you make some money off the consumer.

Awesome! Rinse and repeat, and try to optimize for an even better campaign next time!

..

You can even have some fun with your campaign, and throw in a view requirement. 

That would mean that your consumer wouldn’t be able to obtain the reward unless their video hit a certain number of views. This could be a nice fourth dimension to throw into the mix, but not something, but make sure your making the incentive worthy of your customer’s time.

The harder it is to obtain a reward, the more rewarding it should be.

There would definitely be some drawbacks of launching something like this on YouTube or Vimeo.

Sound like a lot of work, to go back and forth and have to check the videos? It would be.

What happens when all the videos get advertisements placed all over them? You’re videos turn into spam.

You can’t “collect” videos and use them at your whim. They get uploaded to the uploader’s channel, not your business’.

We’ve built a tool that solves all of these problems, and it’s called CrowdEngage.

You can launch a campaign very easily, with clearly defined goals and expectations.

You have full control of the incentive to entice your customers.

You have full control of the collection of these videos, as well as the free use of them as content.

There are no advertisements. There are no hidden fees.

At the completion of each campaign, you get a full report and statistics of how well you campaign did.

Sound like something you or your business would be interested in? Leave your e-mail below to be on the mailing list. You’ll be notified the moment it’s ready to unveil.