Monday 28 February 2011

3 of the Best Facebook Places Campaigns

3 of the Best Facebook Places Campaigns

“Places” is a location-based feature of the Facebook’s mobile application, accessible via Smartphones, launched in August 2010. Facebook Places allows Facebook users to see where their friends are and to share their locations in the real world. Each time a Facebook user checks-in to a particular location on Facebook Places, Facebook broadcasts the check-in to that user’s friends’ news feeds.

Although the service has only been around for a few months, quite a few companies have already begun integrating Facebook Places into their marketing programs, as they realized that it can be another powerful Facebook marketing tool for businesses.

The information provided was gathered from two different articles called “5 Creative Facebook Places Marketing Campaigns” written by Leyl Master Black and “5 of the Best Facebook Places Campaigns” by Lauren Fisher.

Based on these two sources, we created our own top 3 Facebook Places Campaigns used for tourism and events businesses. We chose three innovative examples that illustrate how companies can use this tool to design marketing campaigns that build awareness, help increase their fan base and engage and reward customers.


1. Facebook Places Leader Boards: VisitBritain

(http://www.facebook.com/LoveUK?v=app_157474947622805)

VisitBritain, the official UK Tourism Board, andBetapond”, a Facebook and social technology development company, have launched an innovative Facebook Places program that uses a leader board (among other tactics) to promote various UK landmarks and the country as a whole.

The program encourages visitors to check in every time they reach a notable British location and write a review of what they find. This information then automatically updates a “Top 50 UK Places” leader board on VisitBritain’s LoveUK Facebook Page. The British DMO hopes that it will give a useful insight of the users’ preferences for tourist attractions, and help measure the popularity of these destinations.

The program has already driven tens of thousands of check-ins in just a few weeks, with more than 250,000 visits to the Top 50 Places page. VisitBritain’s fan number has also increased by 34% since the start of the campaign.

This program has proven to be a great online marketing tool and can therefore be considered as a model for other DMOs. It has an enormous effect on engaging customers and creating awareness, and it cuts off the costs for the attractions promotion campaign.

2. Eristoff’s Snowbombing app

A second example of using Facebook Places, this time for event-based marketing, is the Erristoff’s Snowbombing app.

Eristoff, a Russian vodka brand, created a free iPhone application using Facebook Places, which helps users stay in touch with their friends at “Snowbombing”, a week-long music and winter festival in Mayrhofen, Austria

The app allows users to check-in via Facebook Places to find out where their friends are located. In addition, there is a possibility to win prizes. It also has a continuously updated schedule for all events and artists with a creative "what's on now" and "what's on next" feature.

Eristoff is one of the official sponsors of the annual festival each April. Mark Holdsworth, working as the marketing controller, summarizes this fascination: “Our sponsorship of Snowbombing is a perfect partnership as it gives us the ability to tell our brand story and bring out innovations, like our aggregation of Facebook Places within our festival guide.”

3. Check in for Charity

Southwest Airlines showed another good use of Facebook Places when they launched their holiday charity campaign in November – January. Every time somebody was checking in at their airport they offered a $1 donation to the “Make a Wish” organization. In total, they donated $300,000. The campaign was a good way to introduce customers to Facebook Places and tapped into the charitable feeling at that time of the year. This is a great example of focusing on a real purpose of donating money while building loyalty to your brand.

Sources: http://mashable.com/2011/01/10/facebook-places-campaigns/

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/02/04/5-of-the-best-facebook-places-campaigns/

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