June 30th, 2010 
Maria Helm 
Most social media campaigns are focused on the amount of friends, fans or followers; however, oftentimes we forget that we need to increase the engagement levels of our friends, fans and followers. Surveys, contests, and promotions are all great ways to build your follower count and increase your engagement. Following are tips and ideas I have seen effective for small businesses:
Offer a “buy one-get one free” promo to the first 5 people who answer a question about your company or your product on Twitter correctly. This will prompt people to send you tweets while they learn more about your company, product or service.
Offer a gift card to your store to a randomly picked Facebook Fan every month. This builds your fan base and keeps them coming back every month.
Survey your audience on current events, pop culture facts, industry news, their daily life or habits. The polls that do not directly relate to your business tend to have some of the highest engagement rates. If you host these polls on your Facebook Fan page, LinkedIn profile or Blog you will benefit from the added attention it can bring.
Host a scavenger hunt. Hide a badge on your blog or website and give your social media audience hints for what they are trying to find. The first person that sends you an email with a correct guess will be featured in your next email newsletter. An even better idea would be to get together with a few of your partners and each hide something on your blog – the first person to get all of the items correct wins a prize. This would help you get in front of a much larger audience while still engaging your current one.
Start a contest. Ask your audience to submit blogs that you could post as guest blogs, videos of them using your products, and photos or videos that relate to your industry. Pick the best submission then feature and endorse it. The person’s item that you choose will show it off to their audience as well, helping you build your friends and followers.
Social media is not like your traditional direct marketing where the interaction is more of a one-to-many. Social media campaigns encourage a many-to-many type of interaction. Your audience freely takes your message, interprets it and passes it on. So make sure that you always have something for them to talk about.
Have you had success with ideas mentioned above? Social media or other promotional campaign?
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