The Peter Brady Factor: How to Keep Your Brand from Throwing a Social Media Pity Party

By Marcy Walsh

Remember the episode of The Brady Bunch in which Peter Brady throws himself a “hero” party and no one shows up? Many brands today are feeling the pizza and soda pop blues when their contests or sweepstakes fail to attract hundreds of friends or followers in spite of what appear to be great incentives. All the effort that is put into these activities can feel futile when only a handful of people enter. And now that social media is making it easier for companies of all sizes to create buzz online using contests and sweepstakes, it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed.

Peter’s mistake was that he was patting himself on the back for doing a good deed, and his friends and family didn’t feel he needed any more attention. In kind, organizations introducing contests and sweepstakes can’t take the approach that “if you will build it they will come.” The microsite is up, the tweet is out or the Facebook contest is ready. So why is the room empty?

If this has happened to you, your invitation probably falls into one of three categories: it wasn’t compelling enough, or people didn’t care enough about what they could get by participating; it was too much of a hassle, or the ask was too great for the reward; or people didn’t have enough notice to make it (and their friends weren’t going or didn’t tell them about it if they were!).

The first (and yes I am aware this may not need to be said) critical step is to be strategic with your contest or sweepstakes, according to Francisco Rosales of SocialMouths:

• Start with the basics of objectives, target audiences, incentives, tactical execution plan and measurement, and you are setting up the contest for success.
• Decide where to hold your party. Is the sweepstakes or contest better held on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or other social media platform? And how can you tap into other networks to promote the sweepstakes or contest?
• With that decision, you can determine where you want people to land – whether that is on a landing page specific to the contest, your YouTube Channel or Your Facebook page.
• Know the legal rules of engagement. Sweepstakes and contests have very different legal requirements. Sweepstakes require no skill and include a random drawing. Contests involve a competition in which participants are judged on a requirement (i.e., photo contest, video contest, essay contest). And know Facebook’s new rules for contests and sweepstakes before launching.

Once you’ve reached the tactical stage with your contest, Michael Stelzner offers a few tips to create successful contests with social media:

• Don’t make me sweat too much. The reward must be equal or greater than the effort for me to participate. Air New Zealand’s Kiweets contest was launched on Twitter and was very successful at building a 3,000 person Twitter community in less than one month for the airline’s promotion because the ask was simple and the reward was great: Answer a trivia question correctly and be entered into a sweepstakes to win a flight to New Zealand. Each day for thirty days there was one winner, and the grand prize winner received a business class seat. Easy to participate, easy to share with friends, enough time in the promotion to build a buzz. The 3,000 person community tweeted daily, and all participants combined generated more than 4.1 million earned organic brand impressions within Twitter alone. Had Air New Zealand asked entrants to write a 300 word essay or film a three-minute video on why they deserved to win a flight, the participation level likely wouldn’t have been as high.

Dunkin Donuts “Keep it Coolatta” Facebook promotion asked 800,000 fans to go into its stores, buy a Coolatta, and upload a picture of themselves with the Coolatta for a chance to win prizes and their likeness on the fan page. Not only was the ask simple, but Dunkin Donuts was tapping into its already existing fan community to spread the word about its new product.

• Make the invitation compelling and measurable. You have one shot at getting people to care before it falls off their Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds. Both are great ways to spread the word quickly, but use your words carefully and include short URLs and hashtags for tracking participation and winners.

• Promote. Promote. Promote. Companies can learn a great deal from General Motor’s promotion of its “Chevrolet’s SXSW Road Trip Challenge. The brand invited eight teams of social media folks to go on a road trip/scavenger the week prior to SXSW from Austin in some of Chevy’s new products. They were asked to compete in 50 challenges along the way. The winning team was based not only on completing the challenges but also on how much they interacted with their own and the brand’s social media communities. Involving the social media community in promoting the brand via the challenge was key to the success of this contest and the brand’s awareness. For many brands, relying on your Facebook and Twitter following alone to promote your contest or sweepstakes is not maximizing the potential of social communities. Working with bloggers, promoting both online and offline if appropriate, and allowing your contest or sweepstakes the amount of time necessary to properly promote will help your organization to be successful.

Once your successful contest or sweepstakes is over, don’t forget about your new friends! Continue to have conversations with the community created, continue to engage with events that are of interest to them, and don’t let the contest or sweepstakes be the only contact you have with the community or you’ll be back to the pity party! Once you’ve built it, keep showing up, listening and participating.