Greg Tan | BlinkCampaign

Put a front to your Store

Posted by Greg Tan on December 8, 2011

We have taken a step further into creating a more complete experience for our eCommerce business users to use. What have we improved you may ask? Well, somethings that might add that little bit of zest into your Facebook SocialStore.

Customizable front for your store

Highlight specific items on the first page that your users view. Add a video, custom images and links to further personalize your SocialStore. You are also able to add on our custom widgets, Featured Products and Most Liked. Featured Products allows you to choose which products that you want to highlight to your users as your popular choices. The Most Liked widget has another important function, it shows which products users find most popular and want to recommend to others. Research has shown that people tend to refer to what others do or buy when they are unsure, and its the same for social shopping. With more recommendations in the form of Likes, people will trust the authenticity of the item more.

Multiple angles of your products

Now you are able to showcase multiple images (max. of 3 images) to cover the angles of your product. Front, back and side profile, now you can show them various angles and give your customer a better visualization of your product, enhancing the viewers trust in your product. There is nothing like seeing the real thing for itself, but you can definitely come close to it.

View the number of your products bought

The point of having a store online is to generate more exposure of your products, and ultimately lead to more purchases. In your account dashboard, besides being able to see most likes, most views and most comments, now you are able to see most buys. This is a great indicator for conversion, and you will be able to see which of your products are the most popular.

We thank everyone for their suggestions as we continue to improve BlinkCampaign. Anything that you think your help improve your eCommerce business, drop us a mail! We are always happy to hear your views and if it is for the better good for all your businesses out there, we will definitely incorporate it into our system. Keep those suggestions coming!

Incorporating Social Shopping with SocialStore

Posted by Greg Tan on November 4, 2011

As we all know, more and more people are spending more time on Facebook. Just based on studies about the top country population using Facebook, Singapore, on average Singaporeans spend 38 mins 46 sec (dated Aug 2011) on Facebook.

So what do people do on Facebook and how does that relate to online shopping? Research has shown that an amount of 56% surveyed have visited various retailers’ Facebook page to find out about online or offline sales and promotions, and also 25% of an average shopper’s time online is spent on the social media network. With such a high percentage of interest, wouldn’t you as a retailer want to make it easier for your shoppers to have access to your products and promotions?

Enter SocialStore, bringing your E-commerce storefront to Facebook. You will be able to import your product inventory with product description, pricing, image and even SKU number. You can even set a special discounted rate just for your fans, giving them an incentive to be your fan.

Setting up your store

So how do you go about setting up your store? First click on the SocialStore tab, you will be asked to connect to Facebook first. Click on it and install the SocialStore. This will populate the SocialStore tab onto your Facebook page.

Go back to your SocialStore tab, you will be informed that you currently have no product and you will be able to upload your products by .CSV format or by adding manually.

Should you have a long list of products, uploading a .CSV spreadsheet of your products would accelerate your upload process. To view a sample .CSV file, click here.

Store Settings and Layout

Next we come to the store layout. First you would be able to upload a custom header banner image (.JPG, .GIF or .PNG) into the system. The maximum width for the header would be 520px.

After you have uploaded your products, next up would be to customize your store settings and layout. There are two templates that you can choose from, Grid or List. Should you have a lot of products, a Grid view might suit your page and your users will be able to surf through more products quickly. Should you want your products to display more details straight out, the list layout would suit you.

Like all of our SocialPromotions and SocialApps, you will be able to Fan Gate your SocialStore, give your fans a special privilege and also perhaps a special fans only pricing. This will entice users to be your fan.

Facebook share settings

This is a simple and yet crucial section to update. This is where you setup the post that streams into your fans’ wall when the SocialStore is shared. There are 4 things that you would need to key in and upload.

Firstly its the post thumbnail. This can come in the form of .JPG, .GIF or .PNG format. The crucial thing to note is that it must be 90px width and 90px height. Next are the post title, post caption which must be a short description of not more than 100 characters, and lastly a post description. This is where your marketing message needs to strike a cord with users, engaging them to click and see what your SocialStore has.

Once those 3 portions have been completed, your SocialStore is ready! Its that simple and effective. Have a go at it and try it for yourself, leverage on the amount of exposure Facebook can bring to your products as you bring your storefront onto Facebook.

Benefits of the Tried and Tested Contest

Posted by Greg Tan on August 22, 2011

Everybody loves the winning feeling. When you participate in a contest, the most crucial pull factor is the fact that you can win something that you want.

Back when the internet wasn't around, the idea of a contest was already fervent. Be it a beauty contest, a photo contest, a giveaway contest or even a radio contest. In today's context, nothing has changed, just the media used to participate is different.

A business Facebook page has 2 main difficulties to focus on. 1 is to generate more fans to reach out to. The next is to engage them and keep them involved. Many businesses have turned to the tried and tested way of creating a contest to do just that.

Benefits

As a marketer, every promotion campaign created must have a purpose. Whether it is to acquire more fans, or to link up with an event or to reward your fans. So what does a contest do for you?

Market Research

Running contests can help you to research into what your fans actually think of your product and also what they would like. Depending on how you position your contest, it will allow you to get more information from your fans.

Generate Buzz

Contests always garner people's interest, but most importantly in Facebook's context, your participating fans will also promote your contest to their friends if it is something that they can relate to. Conversations will be created and possibly help in converting more new fans.

ROI

How do you measure marketing success? A contest allows you to see real numbers of participants, whether you are targeting the right target group and also whether your campaigns are tweaked to their liking. So whether you are doing it right, or simply way off, contests are a good indicator.

Target Market

With all marketing campaigns, its important to look at your targeted market and determine 2 factors before carrying on.

1) Is your targeted market group the type to enter competitions? If yes, which type of competition?

2) What prizes will entice them to participate?

Once you have answered the 2 factors and determine what kind of competition you can organize, you are able to streamline your competition and increase participation from your fans.

Incorporate it into your Marketing Plan

We know that social media is the current hype now, but jumping in without a plan is like charging into war with no back up resources to maintain, at the start you might win over more fans, but as time goes by, the impact will diminish and you would be back at square one or even worse.

A contest will help you to acquire new fans, but if there is no constant engagement between you and your fans, their interest in your business will dwindle, stopping their progression into becoming your potential customers.

A contest helps you to acquire new users and reward your exisiting users, incorporate it into your marketing plans for the year, both offline and online. This will help your business pace its fan engagement. Remember that sustainence is key.

How to Optimize Your Contest

Few things to keep in mind when creating your contest.

Keep it simple to win

Keep the conditions for your fans to participate simple. For example, "To enter our Family Day contest, just simply submit a photo of you and your family enjoying a day out!" The easier it is to participate, the higher the chances people will make the effort to participate.

Dont ask open ended questions

If your question needs an essay like answer, then chances are you wouldn't be receiving very much participants. Its simple, would you want to take 20 mins writing an essay to just stand a chance of winning something? Nuff said.

Give enticing prizes

Imagine what you as a contestant would want, or ask your friends who might fall into your target group what they would want. Its better to offer only a few prizes that is more costly but have more appeal to people, than offer a lot of prizes that nobody really wants or needs.

Keep to the Facebook Guidelines

Before you proceed to create your own contest, please read and follow the Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines. You wouldn't want to put in all your effort to create your promotion campaign, arrange your prizes and then get your contest removed by Facebook due to not following their guidelines.

The concept of Social Campaigns + Social Email

Posted by Greg Tan on July 7, 2011

In today’s world, people are drowning from an information overload. There are lots of avenues where content is streaming from, and people have to sign up or view various avenues just to get their fix of information. In online marketing, the same problem exist, so picking of your ‘battles’ to fight are necessary.

Picking the media to pursue

So let’s target the marketing medias that will give your business the most exposure. What are the 3 online medias online that garner the most hype and gives you back the best ROI in today’s context? There is currently the consistent Email, the ever expanding Social Media and the technical based mobile. Some would argue with the integration of emails and social onto mobile platforms, you would have covered all grounds by just covering email + social media.

Once again, there are tons of social media platform out there, so which system should we start off with? With Facebook fast approaching the 1 billion users mark set by their creator Mark Zukerberg, you can’t go wrong starting with Facebook. Facebook generates your exposure by the age old concept of word of mouth, into the convenience of an online means.

How does Social Media Integrate with Email

Before the hype that is social media, the most dependable option for storing your business contacts and customers would be in your email database. Chances are the information you have are limited, as you would only give the minimum necessary information to a business that you don’t know. In steps social media to assist you. Social media helps you to stick out your hand, and tell your customers,”Hi, I want to know you more”. When people see the steps your business takes to know them better, they would be more willing to share their likes and dislikes, their more personal information that might help you to gather more targeted information to help your business to cater to them.

Social media is not here to replace email, they address various groups of people and also have various purposes of usage. Instead, use social media to compliment it, effective social media marketing will rely on your product relevancy, how you engage your users and the two way communications that you have with your users. Use your email marketing campaigns to further market your promotions online, link them to your social media presence and get them to be your fans. Grow your social CRM database, and know your customers better than ever.

Benefits of Email + Social

Multiply your sharing exposure by linking e-mail marketing messages with social media marketing messaging.
Creates a platform where your best customers can be your brand advocate, sharing on social media the benefits of your business.
Put your customer in the driver seat of your marketing, know more about what your customer wants and use their concerns to create a more targeted marketing approach.

Integrated online marketing or multi-channel marketing is here, and BlinkCampaign is on board to give you a hand as you make your progression to an integrated online marketing approach.