Over the last few days, I’ve had a lot of time to think. Between talking with recruiters, networking, and doing freelance work, I’ve still found a big chunk of time where I’ve been alone with my thoughts. And when that happens, I tend to get ideas for blog posts. This one came to me while driving, so I had to write down my thoughts on the back of an envelope which still sits in my passenger seat. 

While trying to figure out my next move, I’ve been asked the following obvious, yet terrifying question many times: “What do you want to do?” It’s usually followed by “Either way, you still want to stay in social media, right?” And of course my answer leads me to an unstructured, yet passionate diatribe about social media marketing and what that actually means. This post is my attempt to explain my answer in written form. You’ll have to just imagine me flailing my hands wildly to try to convey my enthusiasm. 

When it comes to the role of marketing at any company, there are four words that pop into my head: 

1. Goals
2. Strategies
3. Tools
4. Execution

All new social networks and community-focused services face the same challenge: attracting a loyal user base. Having the latest and greatest facebook+twitter+flickr+whatever is great, but worthless without an active community of users. While there are many different ways to run a user acquisition campaign, this article will focus specifically on using a contest to attract new users. We’ll look at one example of a contest created to drive user acquisition, and we’ll examine the social media tools used to promote the campaign. Though we’ll focus on a contest, the promotional methods described here can easily be used for any user acquisition campaign.

The Contest

As one of several user acquisition campaigns, my employer, matchmine, launched a weekly sweepstakes. A little background: the company is a media discovery network, helping partners recommend better content to their users based on the users’ media preferences. The contest was created to satisfy two goals: get users to register and send traffic to partner sites.

The Prize: The winner of each week’s sweepstakes is given the choice of either

• Two tickets to the next New England Patriots home game
• A football signed by any New England Patriots player
• A $100 New England Patriots Pro Shop gift certificate

Promotion

After launching the contest on patriots.com, we identified several promotional opportunities to maximize our visibility and conversion rate.

1. Video- We shot a video that summarizes the contest, including how to create accounts on our partner sites. The video not only gave us an opportunity to succinctly explain a complex contest, it was also a great off site marketing tactic. We hosted the video on blip.tv, which is both a destination site and a publishing tool. End users go to to blip.tv to watch video, and publishers get free hosting from blip. Having the video hosted at blip gave us both a free place to host the video and a new audience that would not have been able to see the video if it was hosted in-house.

In the video, the presenter mentions the URL of the contest, and it appears on screen. This way, no matter where the video is viewed, viewers know where to go to sign up for the weekly sweepstakes.

Here’s the video:

2. Refer-A-Friend- Whenever possible, it makes sense to let the community itself expand your user base. In the context of a social network or messaging system, it makes sense for users to want to invite their friends, as they get more out of the service when people they know are there. But in a contest, inviting friends seems counterproductive: why ask your friends to sign up when each friend registration reduces your chance of winning?

We solved that problem with additional entries. Let’s use an example here. We’ll say that Frank signed up for the contest. Wanting to have the best shot at winning, he decided to invite 5 of his friends to sign up. When all 5 signed up, Frank got an additional 5 more entries. By shifting the incentive to invite more people to sign up, we gave all users motivation to promote the contest.

A great example of a social service that does this well is thesixtyone.com, a music discovery site. The site gives users points for actions like listening and rating music, and also gives incentives to invite friends to join.

3. email- Ah yes, email. When a user signs up for the contest, we immediately send a confirmation email, telling them how they can earn additional entry in the contest. Each week, we also send an email announcing the winner and reminding users how to gain additional entries.

4. Friends and Family- Once the contest was launched, the first promotional activity was what we called a “friends and family” round. We encouraged all employees to send a message to their contacts to tell them about the contest. This served dual purposes: First, it gave us a chance to receive feedback from people we know personally. Second, it helped us identify any glitches before promoting to the masses.

5. Twitter- Once we felt comfortable with the way the program was working, we encouraged employees to mention it on twitter, using a shortened URL from bit.ly. Using the bit.ly url, we were able to measure clicks from twitter, along with metrics on retweets and other twitter users using the same link.

6. Facebook- Our company set up a facebook page and group specifically for this purpose. We linked to the contest on both, and encouraged friends of the company to sign up and spread the word.

7. Company Blog- As soon as the contest was launched, I posted on the company blog, giving details on how to win. I also included the embedded video.

8. Bloggers- Finally, given the fact that we’d instituted a refer-a-friend feature, we decided to extend referrals to bloggers. We compiled a list of bloggers focused on the New England Patriots, and sent them a note about the promotion. If they were interested in posting about the contest, we would create a special URL for the blogger. That way, any reader that signed up for the contest as a result of clicking the link in their blog post would give the blogger an additional entry.

All of these promotional techniques can be utilized in any user acquisition program. Whether you have great prizes to attract the masses, or simply have a great product in need of a user base, using these social media tools is a great first step in driving user signups.

Today I hit a breaking point. One of those rare moments in life when you break out of the autopilot that is every day human experience and stop. Something that you’ve taken for granted suddenly changes in your mind. Your entire construction of reality up to that point is called into question, and you are forced to redefine normality.

What was it? And what did it have to do with “social media”? Well, I’ll tell you.

I watched a cartoonist argue about social media with a fictional character on twitter.

Once I realized the absurd and surreal nature of what I was witnessing, the term “social media” popped into my head, and I started to think about what it actually means. It certainly has all the feel of a buzzword without meaning, but who am I to judge? So, I did what anyone would do: I asked the googles.

After a barrage of ads from “accredited social media experts”, “social media success coaches” and companies wanting to perform a social media audit, I still had no answer. People wanted to charge me money for their expertise in something I have yet to get a definition for. My head spins.

So I turn to wikipedia. You know what they say: if it’s on the internet, it has to be true.

Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories, and understandings.

Right…..I am now less intelligent for reading that. So basically “social media” is any activity that results in anything, anywhere, as long as people are around and technology is involved somewhere. If that’s the case:

• If I’m riding on a subway with an ’80s style boombox blaring, and people are around, that’s social media.
• If I bring a fishing pole into Petco and have a friend record the reactions of people who think I’m a lunatic while I try to catch a beta fish, well, that’s social media.

Well, if that’s true, being a social media expert sounds like a pretty sweet gig. How’s that for a segue…..?

This morning I saw an article on mashable entitled “Are Social Media Jobs Here to Stay?” by Ben Parr. In it, Mr. Parr says:

Let’s face it: Social media has become one of the hot buzzwords in tech circles. It used to be Web 2.0 and social networking, but now we have moved on to a broader term that encompasses not only social networking, but blogs, podcasts, user-generated content, social bookmarking, microblogging, and lifestreams. The rise of all these forms of new media has also created demand for people who can help companies position and market themselves within this new realm.

So, why do we talk about “social media” as an area of expertise? Aren’t we really talking about promotion? We’re now defining a role based on the tools used to achieve goals. We’re not interested in hiring a painter, instead we’re looking for a paint roller guru. Who wants a lion tamer when you can get a whip expert?

Am I just worrying about semantics? Maybe. But maybe not. Here’s my theory:

When you use a vague term like “social media”, you sound mysterious. Saying “I’m a social media expert” is a lot like saying “I am an alchemist. You wouldn’t understand.” The mention of the term suggests a closely guarded set of skills used to achieve an unmeasurable goal resulting in instant riches. And there’s always someone that will say “here’s my money. Do your thing” rather than “I don’t understand what you’re selling. Please explain it to me.”

Am I bashing the slick tools that comprise “social media?” Not at all. I love things like twitter, blogs, video, podcasts, the whole thing. If it’s shiny and has a beta invite available, I’m all over it. But in the end, they’re just tools. Means to an end.

A ladder isn’t very useful when you’re not trying to get to an elevated position. But if you need to clear the roof, it’s the best.

Have a great weekend. This is Nathan Burke, keyboard pressing expert, and mouse click guru.