Facebook is the worldâ??s biggest site for social media marketing. It claims to have 350 million active users in 180 countries â?? and 50% of them log onto it every day. Advertisers are scrambling for ways to make their clients stand out in this vast network. Here are ten recent Facebook marketing campaigns that worked. They are original, they cut through the clutter and they created a buzz. You will also see that most of these promotions did something creative with their product or service that engaged the user.

McCann Erickson Advertising in Israel created a great Facebook application for Yellow Retail, a provider of online games and novelty items. This app searched for your friends and found â??Sad Friendsâ? with status updates like â??Iâ??m depressedâ?, â??Iâ??m lonely,â? â??Iâ??m bored,â? etc. Then it sent them a notification with a coupon for a free game at Yellow Retail. Itâ??s cool â?? and it tied in a Facebook feature with a product benefit.

This campaign was for a new Ikea store that used the default â??taggingâ? tool on Facebook to help create excitement for a contest. People were told to tag their name on any item, and the first one who did would win that item. The moment you tagged something, everyone in your network knew about it and soon thousands of people were flooding the Facebook page looking for free giveaways. The campaign was an instant hit.

V Australia – a division of Virgin Airlines – launched a clever campaign that let you nominate a â??frenemyâ? (a combination of â??friendâ? and â??enemyâ?) who could be sent to the destination of their choice anywhere in the world. But there was a catch â?? it was a one way ticket. This served as a great promotion for a new airline and it also helped to grow V Australiaâ??s Facebook fan page from 1,200 to over 11,000 in only a week. V Australia is off to good start with their social media marketing and it will be interesting to see what they come up with next.

The idea behind â??Whopper Sacrificeâ? was simple enough – delete ten of your Facebook friends and get a free Whopper. It caught on like wildfire because by the end of the campaign over 50,000 friends had been deleted. But deleting friends isnâ??t what Facebook is about. Facebook wants people to make connections, not cancel them, and Burger King was eliminating more friendships than the giant social media site was comfortable with. All good things must come to an end â?? and ultimately the Whopper Sacrifice was sacrificed. Although some people are now wondering if it was worth losing a friend over a hamburger.

This is not a campaign per se but it deserves to be mentioned. The Red Bull Fan Page is one of the most exciting places on Facebook because it breaks out of the stereotype and offers content that is fun and funny â?? and it encourages fans to interact and connect with the brand. The Red Bull â??Boxesâ? section is great. One application called â??Drunkish Dialsâ? lets people rate â??drunk dialingâ? phone calls. Another section is the â??Procrastination Stationâ? â?? where you can learn how to waste precious time. There are tie-inâ??s with snowboarding and surfing â?? but letâ??s get real â?? a lot of people like the way Red Bull ties in with vodka. This is a brand that knows its audience and their kind of honesty goes a long way in social media marketing.

The latest product from Canadaâ??s favourite tortilla chip didnâ??t have a name so last year Doritos called on consumers for help A promotion was held on Facebook last year for Canadian residents. Doritos Canada enlisted young snackers to help name a flavor of a new product and create a television commercial. The turn out was huge. Submissions were made in a 30 second video format and any kind of showcase was acceptable â?? dance, music, comedy, digital or animation. On May 1st Canadianâ??s voted for â??Scream Cheese.â? The commercial aired on TV and online, and the winners walked away with $25,000 plus 1 % of net sales. The people who won the prize screamed â?? not for cheese â?? but for joy.

Adobe had a challenge â?? how to increase awareness among college students for the launch of Adobe Student Editions, a new multimedia software product. They wanted students to know that they could purchase these products at an 80% discount. The solution was a promotion called â??Real or Fakeâ? using the Adobe Facebook Fan Page. Users had to decide whether a photo was real or a â??fakeâ? one edited with Photoshop. The game lasted for 4 weeks with 5 photos being posted each week. If a photo had been edited with Photoshop, a tutorial showed how it was done. At the end of the game, users were presented with information about Adobe Student Editions. The game was a success because it tied-in neatly with Photoshop â?? a product Adobe is famous for.

H&M, the big Swedish clothing company, has an innovative and engaging Facebook Page and a community of almost 1,500,000 fans. What are they doing right? They focus on keeping their page current and their content fresh. They use page tabs and constantly update their page with current promotions, grand openings and new designer launches. They take advantage of all of the newest engagement ads, including Become a Fan, Polling and Event RSVP. Most important – they create an interactive dialogue with their most avid fans, instead of just posting information. H & M seems to understand what social media marketing is all about â?? itâ??s about making friends.

Adidas Originals is a line extension of Adidas that celebrates originality. The Adidas Orginals campaign celebrated 60 years of originality with a campaign featuring top athletes and celebrities like David Beckhan, Missy Elliot and Run DMC. The Adidas Originals Facebook Page encouraged two-way conversations with Adidas consumers and motivated them with stories about artists, musicians and celebrities. The David Beckham video was very popular. Today the Adidas Originals Facebook Page has over 2,000,000 fans.

The Facebook Fan Page for this potato chip doesnâ??t grab you like Red Bull but the videos are great. They are low budget productions of people singing silly songs. There is very little editing or props but thousands of people â??likeâ? the videos and share them with their friends. This gives Pringles a chance to promote their product without having to a resort to a paid ad. Thatâ??s good business by itself because the average cost of producing a TV commercial today is over $400,000. Videos are easy to consume and they are one of the most popular types of shared content online. This is why many businesses try to make videos that will go â??viralâ? – in other words – get seen by an exponentially growing number of people. This is not an easy feat and when youâ??re successful it can be a goldmine. Pringles gets a thumbs up for doing this. They have nearly 3,000,000 fans now – not bad for a potato chip that got its name out of a Cincinnati phone book.

If email marketing solutions are so inexpensive and simple to use, why is it that you never see convenience stores using them?
As a convenience store owner, you don’t have the time or money to spend on costly print ads, and definitely not enough of a profit margin to justify using ads in TV. But that doesn’t mean you cannot advertise to increase sales. Email marketing solutions are a cost effective way to bring your clients to your store more often. Compared to other forms of advertising, email marketing solutions cost a fraction of the cost. Print ads can run you anywhere from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. Obviously, this isn’t an option for your store. Email marketing solution platforms can cost as little as $10 for one thousand emails.
You don’t have time for this! Your store is open early and late in order to accommodate your clients. Plus, you need your free time to spend with the family. You won’t be able to get around to this also, right?
Wrong!
Email marketing solutions only takes a few moments to set up, and what you get are professionally crafted advertising campaigns sent directly to your clients.
So here’s how you start. This first thing you have to do is collect a list of emails. There are a number of ways to do this. One effective method is to collect business cards: At the cash register, you can place a bowl (or some other form of bin). Add a sign telling clients that if they drop off their business cards, they can receive discounts on in-store purchases through your email marketing solutions campaigns. What clients will do is put their business cards in the bowl with an email to contact them. Just like that, you have the first few contacts for you email campaign.
Now, you need to sign up for an email marketing solutions account, create your first campaign and send it out to the people on your list. Signing up is simple, as email marketing solutions are user-friendly.
Creating your campaign is a simple process also. Email marketing solutions provide you with simple-to-use templates. All you have to do is input your written information (or copy and paste it), and add your own images from your computer.
Once your email marketing campaign is created and sent out, you will be able to track which of your clients were clicking on your promotions. Also, by adding a ‘forward to friend’ button, you can also expand your mailing list, and increase your potential to gain more clients.
Here are some things to keep in mind when filling in your email marketing solutions template: Do not use excessive bolding, italics, and capital lettering in the body or the subject line of your email. Plus, try not to put too many product images without adding content to support the images. Bolding, italics, capitalization, and a high image to text ratio are all criteria that the spam filters look for. If you overuse them, your email will not go into your subscribers’ inbox, but rather into their spam/junk box.
By using email marketing solutions, your convenience store will have a greater customer return rate, which will drive up your sales. Email marketing solutions can provide you with this added business in a very reasonable and time-sensitive manner. It can maximize your store’s potential, save your money, and provide you the opportunity to spend quality time with your family. Now that sounds like a sweet deal!