Deals May Get You in the Door, but They Won't Build Relationships.

2010 & 2011 were all about "deals". Everyone chased the "new & shiny objects" However, there is an increasing concern on the value of the "deal customers". Marketers have avidly sought social-media fans in recent years, often using deals or sweepstakes to boost numbers. But are they really attracting the right people? 

Data from social-media analytics firm Colligent suggest many brands have attracted lots of deal seekers. And while these consumers may be profitable, they're not the most-effective brand advocates, according to some analysts and social-media executives. 

Brands that build fan bases using sweepstakes "end up with a very difficult time trying to get those fans to engage," said Justin Kistner, director of social products at analytics firm WebTrends. "They were never with your brand in the first place. They just wanted a chance to win that iPad," he said. "We call it garbage fans." 

Twitter now is even touting its relative lack of deal-seekers among brand followers as a selling point vs. Facebook. 

Read more here on Adage.  Also read here about "deep discounting"

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• Why Marketers Never Learn From Others' Social Media Mistakes
• 3 Ways To Improve Your Use of Social Media Data.
• The Social Media Advocacy Model

What type of ads work best on social media platforms.

As time spent on social networking sites increases, (and we know that visiting social networks is the 4th most popular thing that folks do online - ahead of checking their personal emails) advertisers are willing to invest higher percentages of their budgets into campaigns targeting users on those platforms.

However, all the traditional theories & knowledge on how consumers react to ads & hence the effectiveness of ads is out of the window.

Psychster Inc.& Allrecipes undertook a study to determine which kinds of ads are most effective and whether the platforms advertisements appear on make a difference.

Download the PDF from here.

Social Media Measurement, ROI and Monitoring

Had been on the look-out for some good content on the subject for a long time. I am still trying to understand the model where-in I can justify Twittering in terms of impact. Then I came across Robin's post wherein he has pulled together a collection of valuable resources, tools, & advice specifically on the topics of social media measurement, monitoring and ROI.

This along with the other digital marketing tools listed in my earlier post/s called My A to Z list of Digital Tools make a far more comprehensive toolkit. Access my A to Z list here.

I am sure you’ll find his compilation useful and some of the social media statistics resources will find their way into your toolkits. Access the list here.