chance to win prizes or to be entered into contests. Such campaigns put product photography into the social media feeds of thousands of shoppers, and can even be collected and re-used for other marketing purposes if proper permission is granted during the contest. Mega Bloks’ Spartan Strike photo contest engaged passionate toy collectors and allowed them to showcase their work through photos. The photo contest prompted nearly 1,000 toy lovers to post high-quality images of Mega Bloks, attracted new fans, and gave Mega Bloks new email contacts for a targeted demographic consisting of toy lovers.
2. Harness Hashtags Hashtags increase a campaign’s reach, can spark participation, and can also unify a campaign around a theme. By using a branded hashtag—#TeachingwithToys, for example—you can generate photo submissions from multiple networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. This creates a single, unified campaign that spreads your message across multiple networks. Think of the hashtag as a way to aggregate participation across multiple social networks, unifying an audience that might otherwise be divided across many different favorites.
“Whether it is Instagram photos from friends, Facebook updates from coworkers, or design suggestions on Pinterest, the attention of millennials is shifting to information that is generated by friends, family, and acquaintances.”
4. Collect Contacts One of the easiest ways to make sure a social media campaign lives long after the photo contest or voting ends is to collect the email addresses of participants. These types of contacts are valuable for reconnecting with social media users who have already expressed interest in your brand, extending coupons or sales offers by email, or simply signing up for your regular newsletter. Mega Bloks made email signups one of the chief goals of its campaign, and in a week, collected more than 7,500 email addresses along with more than a thousand new fans. ■
3. Create Competition Nothing sparks social media participation like a little competition. Mega Bloks found success using both a polling and a contest platform to have fans vote on their favorite toys. The voting not only engages consumers and builds your brand’s visibility on social media, it also gives company executives vital, real-time customer feedback on products that can be valuable for marketing, product development, and management teams.
54 • THE TOY BOOK
Kevin Bobowki is a social media, branding, and marketing expert who serves as a vice president of Offerpop, a digital marketing platform that reaches mobile and social consumers. Bobowski has designed hundreds of go-to-market strategy and product launches, and has served for more than seven years in executive-level marketing positions. He serves as a strategic thinker for Offerpop, as well as the hundreds of brands that are Offerpop’s customers.
DECEMBER/JANUARY 2015