4 Development Process
4.5 Action
4.5.3 Promotions
Promotion of the product is key to ‘spread the word’ through social media. According to the personas, the most effective method for this is via word-of-mouth, and as such the authors decided to implement a giveaway competition. The initial promotions on both social media channels were designed to be especially safe and secure, to assure new customers. The contest reached approximately 40 participants. To expand on these results during the initial month, further promotions were produced.
The first promotion, internally named the ‘basement’ promotion, was to increase the aware-ness of the brand on social media, encouraging visitors and ‘impressions’. This promotion aimed to increase ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ and were implemented via the in-house features on Facebook and Instagram. Both channels provide options to ‘boost’ the post. The in-house tools are almost identical, aside from Instagram asks the company to provide a goal, shown in the below image. The goal for the first promotion was “more profile visits”. This was done to assure the authors that the page was ready for future promotions, and to increase aware-ness and traffic.
35 Facebook provides the option to boost the post automatically or manually. The authors de-cided to manually boost it, due to the different-from-usual target audience. In this instance, the target audience are male and female, aged between 20 and 45 years. This was done as, in Spain, there are many young families to buy these products for their child’s use as well as older generations who purchase them to give as gifts. The location for the promotion was set for the entire country of Spain. The image below shows the initial creation process, discussed above.
Image 12: Initial Creation Process on Facebook Image 11: 'Goal Selection' on Instagram
36 The second step on both social media channels was to identify keywords. Facebook offers a suggestions list that distinguishes the words by behavior, demographic, interest, and work position. In addition, when the keyword is entered into a search engine, a list of synonyms is provided. The authors used the keywords ‘baby’, ‘mother’, ‘motherhood’, ‘baby shower’ – all in Spanish. Instagram does not offer the same feature, but the same keywords from Facebook were used instead.
The third step is the analyzation of the successes and mistakes. The first promotion had a reach of 5700 individuals, and the post was engaged with by 52 individuals. The price, for both channels, was 5 EUR. According to the social media analytical tools, the post itself attracted 12 ‘followers’ and 27 ‘likes’ on Facebook, and 10 ‘followers’ and 22 ‘likes’ on In-stagram. Furthermore, six individuals visited the website using the link provided. However, the location should be more limited to large areas of population and areas where textile holds influence, rather than the entire country.
A key area for development is Mother’s Day, one of the largest celebrations in Spain. In 2018, this celebration fell on the 6th May. Undoubtedly, Pielsa Baby should increase promo-tions to coincide with this celebration to help increase brand awareness and identity. On Facebook, the authors wrote text that matched the guides to a successful social media post.
The post included pictures of blankets in three colors; light blue, pink, and beige. There is also a link to eBay, where the customers can purchase the products regardless of the out-come of the competition. The giveaway was open between the 4th and 7th of May. The pic-ture below shows how it was presented.
37 To enter the competition, users had to ‘tag’ three friends. This allowed the company to in-crease its awareness, and also participation in the event. Furthermore, the post was com-plemented by two promotions; on the first and last days. One was for the paid audience – those who enter every competition out of a desire to win – and the other for organic audi-ences – those with a genuine interest in the company and its products. During the first day, there were eight participants, but 49 ‘photo clicks’, indicating an interest in the product. The figure below presents the statistics of the competition.
Image 13: Facebook Giveaway
38 The cost of this additional promotion was 1 EUR, and it reached 602 individuals – a good figure for a new page. The payment was lower than the previous promotion as the keywords were more specific. The engagement increased from 52 in the initial promotion to 85 in this, second, promotion, and evidences an increase in the performance of the Facebook page.
On the second day of the giveaway, 15 new participants entered, all friends on social media with the previous participants. This shows that the competition was working, and the aware-ness of the company was increasing.
The final day of the promotion was Mother’s Day, and the promotion was extended to this day for 1 EUR. It included the same keywords, locations, and interests as the previous day.
As Instagram directed users to the Facebook page, the number of participants on the final day reached 44. As a consequence, users shared Pielsa Baby on their individual pages.
The image below shows the final results of the competition.
Figure 4: Facebook Competition Statistics
39
It must be noted that there is a significant legal aspect to operating a giveaway competition, and it must comply with the legal policy of Facebook. To comply, the platform used was
‘Easyprom’, and was used solely for the purpose of the promotion. The website offers dif-ferent services, and for this competition involved a 22 EUR one-time cost and included the regulation of the contest. This complied with all of Facebook’s strict regulations regarding competitions.
In summary, the giveaway competition attracted 44 participants, 35 ‘likes’, and 27 ‘follow-ers’. The main goal of the competition was to increase awareness of Pielsa Baby and attract as many customers as possible. The contest assisted in the increase of brand awareness and identity, the main objective of this thesis.
However, to consolidate the result, the authors decided to continue with a fourth promotion, which allowed the authors to monitor the engagement levels after the initial increase in awareness. The authors also wanted to create a stabilized suggestion for the Commissioner which can be repeated. In this instance, the keywords, locations, and interests remained the same but the price was now 3 EUR. To ensure the quality of the posts remained high, there should be an attractive image, often light photographs in high-quality, with encourag-ing text. The latest post is displayed below.
Image 14: Likes & Comments on Facebook Competition
40 This post attracted 46 ‘likes’ and 20 ‘clicks’ to the product via Facebook. On Instagram, it attracted 15 ‘likes’ and 32 ‘clicks’ to direct the users to the Facebook page. This proves that when users see posts on secondary social media channels, they often visit the primary channel. During the last week of implementation, Instagram created 5471 impressions and Facebook created 6813 impressions. As both numbers are similar, the Commissioner should expect the pages to grow similarly if the page remains active.